Agricom.id, RIAU – Governor of Riau, H. Syamsuar said that the big scale social distancing or pembatasan sosial berskala bebas (PSBB) in the corona virus (Covid-19) pandemic would influence the lives of the people, such as, the food security in many regions. To anticipate the food deficit in Riau province, the regional governments and the farmers start planting the food and horticulture plantations in their own regions.

“Other regions run the PSBB. This would influence the distribution of food from one region to other and also ours. Of course, there would be limits, the price would be more expensive too,” he said when speaking in the 'Gerakan Tanam Penyediaan Pangan Daerah' in Village of Kualu, Sub district of Tambang, District of Kampar, Wednesday (6/05/2020), as in the official written statement to Agricom.id.

He thought that he instructed the regents and majors in Riau to do ‘Gerakan Tanam Penyediaan Pangan Daerah’ by planting the food and horticulture plantations, such as, paddy, corn, cassava, and other kinds of vegetables, and fruit.

“The goal is to balance the supply and demand of the food and to stabilize the price,” he said.

He also mentioned that the planting could be done by intensification, such as, increasing the productivity, advantaging the house yards, planting intercrops, and planting in the pots/polybags. Besides, the planting could be done by extensification, such as, expanding the areas to plant by making new paddy fields, rehabilitating the abandoned areas, optimizing the areas, advantaging the sleeping land, and the areas belonging to the government’s offices/institutions/privates.

“This is also as the response to what President Joko Widodo instructed to make new paddy fields as the anticipation to the drought. Based on the spatial plans of Riau which were made in 2018, we have decided the spatial for the agriculture reaching 514.130 hectares (ha)," he said.

Syamsuar also told the report of the horticulture, food plantation, and food agency, Riau province. In April the harvest covered 3.329,8 ha; in May it is predicted to harvest 4.581,1 ha. In June Riau would harvest 9.246,4 ha. The rice production in April-June would be 40.435,1 tons.

"I emphasized that if the Covid-19 hits or not, we should not be complacent. The agriculture should always be done; do not stop,” he said.

In the other occasion, Minister of Agriculture, Syahrul Yasin Limpo said that some provinces which were in rice deficits are now less. This happened for the government does intervention by supplying rice to the deficit ones.

Ministry of agriculture noted that seven provinces in rice deficit were Riau Island, Bangka Belitung, North Kalimantan, Maluku, North Maluku, West Papua, and Papua.

"After intervention, the rests are only Riau Island, Bangka Belitung, and North Maluku," Syahrul said .

He also emphasized that the intervention that the government did, were, allocating the rice stocks nationally from the surplus provinces to the deficit ones, and coordinating with badan urusan logistik (Bulog) to distribute it.

"The good distribution is the main key to maintain the rice stocks,” he ended his words. (A2)