The government's move to temporarily halt both the rice aid and SPHP programs is part of a strategy to boost farm gate prices, while the President has vowed that the state would close down and take over the operations of noncompliant mills.
The government has temporarily paused rice assistance planned for January and February, the National Food Agency (Bapanas) has said, as it makes budget adjustments to stabilize farm gate prices of unhusked rice for the harvest season.
It has also halted rice aid distribution under the food supply and price stabilization (SPHP) program, a market intervention scheme to control the retail price of rice, for the first two months of the year.
“If we continue flooding the market [with rice from the two programs], the price of unhusked rice won’t rise. We need to strike a balance in supply chain pricing between the upstream and the downstream,” Bapanas head Arief Prasetyo Adi said on Tuesday, as reported by Kompas.com.
Since 2023, the government has distributed rice aid to millions of low-income households each year, typically during months that fall outside the harvest season. The program has been deemed a success in curbing inflation and reducing poverty.
This year’s program was initially slated to distribute rice aid in January and February with a potential extension for another four months, to be scheduled separately, and the State Logistics Agency (Bulog) had prepared 960,000 tonnes of rice for 16 million beneficiaries.
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