Agricom.id, JAKARTA – The government of Indonesia planned to recover the condition to the new normal in facing the corona virus (Covid-19) pandemic. The policy is hoped to increase the welfare of the smallholders, starting from the hotel, restaurant, catering, and office.

Minister of Agriculture, Syahrul Yasin Limpo said that the impacts from the pandemic still hit the people, including the farmers. The factors which influence the faremrs are the price of products which were pressed because of the first massive harvest.

Besides there were distribution disturbances because of big scale social distancing, the lack of buying ability of the people, the decreasing economy which had something to do with the agriculture, such as, hotel, restaurant, catering, and office.

“These made deflation of food groups. There were numbers of food material in the field but lack of demands. These influenced the income of the farmers,” he said, Sunday (7/06/2020), as in the official written statement to Agricom.id.

He thought that in the pandemic, the food group deflation still implicates positively to the social and politic stability. But to minimize the impact to the farmers’ income, the government through the related ministries gave the social helps which compestated the decreasing capability of buying because of the decreasing price of the agriculture products.

“It is hoped that the new normal could recover the production demands on the agriculture products to improve the price in the farmers’ level,” he said.

Ministry of agriculture noted that the first massive harvest was successful to secure the food stocks. There was no increasing price and distribution disturbance of 11 main daily needs, namely in the fasting days and Idul Fitri.

“The agriculture exports still reached 12.6 percent. The farmers’ exchange or nilai tukar petani (NTP) decreased because of the pandemic but it is just temporary and would be better again,” he said.

Facing the phenomenon that the farmers face, Syahrul also told that his side is doing anything, such as, controlling the agriculture price.

“The control is through the coordination with PT. Badan Urusan Logistik, and ministry of trade,” he said.

He also thought that the key to increase the farmers’ exchange is to balance the offer and demand so that the policy published by the government to re-run the tourism and office should be well prepared. The success of the policy would contribute to improve the price in the farmers’ level.

“We would also control the goods price from the farmers, such as, giving guarantee of distribution up to the villages,” he said.

Ministry of agriculture keeps doing its best to maintain the food stocks, namely the rice.

General Director of Food Plantation, Ministry of Agriculture, Suwandi told that the way to maintain the stocks is by accelerating the planting in April - September 2020. This would run in 8 mainstay regions, 9 major regions, and 16 developing regions.

"Ministry of agriculture would give the seed helps, agriculture machines, insurance, and development to accelerate the planting successfully and would give the better harvests,” he said.

He also said that the targets to plant in 2020 would be 11,66 million hectares that would be potential to produce 33,6 million tons of rice. Meanwhile, the rice stocks by the end of June 2020 could be 6,84 million tons.

He also mentioned that the paddy harvest in May 2020 reached 1,25 million hectares within the rice production reaching 3,43 million tons. The paddy potential in June 2020 would be 0,74 million hectares that could  produce 1,94 million tons of rice.

"In the second planting, we targeted to be more than 5,6 million hectares and hopefully, this could produce well. Our food security would be better too,” he said. (A2)