Agricom.id, JAKARTA – The professor of Faculty of Management Economy, Institut Pertanian Bogor (IPB), Muhammad Firdaus did support what ministry of agriculture has done to anticipate the possibility of the food crisis to happen. It is known from its seriousness to maintain the 11 main daily needs during the corona virus (Covid-19) pandemic, in the fasting days, until lebaran 2020 which is about to come

"I do agree with what Minister Syahrul Yasin Limpo has done to turn over the commodities from the surplus regions to the deficit ones. I think that this is on the track, namely to avoid the food crisis,” he said in the sharing session through video teleconference, Tuesday (5/5/2020), as in the official written statement to Agricom.id.

He thought that the food issue is everyone’s issue to notice. The food is the main daily needs for everyone.

“I think, ministry of agriculture has heavy work to do for it has something to do with hunger. Every side should support what ministry of agriculture has done. About the ‘deficit’, I think, there are two kinds of terminology. The first is it takes place in some regions. And the second is which part of the food is deficit? We should not directly tell that we are in deficit now,” he said.

For information, some provinces which were in rice deficit are less because the government did intervention by supplying the rice to the regions directly.

There were seven provinces in rice deficit, such as, Riau Island, Bangka Belitung, North Kalimantan, Maluku, North Maluku, West Papua, and Papua. After the intervention, the regions in rice deficit are Riau Island, Bangka Belitung, and North Maluku.

The intervention was done by allocating the rice stocks nationally from the surplus regions to the deficit ones, and coordinating with badan urusan logistik (Bulog) to distribute.

About this, Minister of Agriculture, Syahrul Yasin Limpo guaranteed that the evelen main daily needs are in control. Besides he also said that the good distribution is the key to maintain the rice stocks.

“Based on the data of rice map in April 2020, there were 28 provinces in surplus more than 10 percent, 2 provinces in deficit about 10-25 percent, they were North Kalimantan and Maluku; and 4 provinces within deficit more than 25 percent, they were Riau, Riau Island, Bangka Belitung, and North Maluku," he said. (A2)