Indonesia’s food security program must be supported by all parties, a legislator said.
“The national food security program is an effort to strengthen national self-reliance. The program must be supported by all of us,” Herman Khaerun, deputy chairman of the House of Representatives (DPR)’s Commission IV, said here on Monday.
Herman believed that the country has huge potential to become a major food barn in the ASEAN region.
The Democrat Party politician said the Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB) had everything to support the program.
“The food revitalization program has been initiated to strengthen the economic resilience and the national resilience. The program has been started since 2005 through the agricultural revitalization launched by President SBY (Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono),” he said.
The food resilience could be realized by becoming self-reliance in rice, soybean, corn and cow meat, he said.
Herman said the innovation of agricultural technology and opening up of new farming area could help boost the food stock.
“If the intensification and extensification and programs must run well. Indonesia does not only want to realize the national food security but also to achieve food production surplus,” he said.
He was optimistic that Indonesia could become ASEAN’s major food barn.
Recently, IPB Vice Rector Hermanto Siregar said Indonesia was the main pillar for the creation of food resilience in the ASEAN region.
“Indonesia plays a very strategic role with regard to creating food resilience in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region. As the region’s biggest country with the biggest population Indonesia is a key factor for creating food resilience in the region,” he said on the sidelines of a national conference of the Indonesian Agriculture Economy Association.
