Jakarta, Sept 18 (Antara) - Agriculture Minister Amran Sulaiman has said his ministry is planning to build 1,000 farmers stores across the country through 2016, in a bid to shorten the distribution chains of agricultural products and stabilize prices.
The development of Indonesian Farmer Stores (TTI) is one of the efforts the government is making to shorten the distribution lines of basic necessity supplies in reaching consumers.
With a fund of Rp200 billion, the farmer shops will be built in a number of cities, such in the Jabodetabek (Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Tangerang and Bekasi), Bandung (West Java), Surabaya (East Java), Medan (North Sumatgra) and Makassar (South Sulawesi).
"In principle, the farmer stores will be built in cities with high food commodity consumption rates," the minister was quoted as saying on Thursday, Sept 17 by online media Tempo.Co.
In order to fulfill the plan, the Ministry of Agriculture will cooperate with the Ministry of Trade and state-logistics board Bulog. Further, the ministry of agriculture will provide guidance and subsidies to farmers.
Bulog will keep the goods in its warehouses and the ministry of trade will provide training for new entrepreneurs in the agricultural field. Currently, 20 shops have been opened as a pilot project in the Jabodetabek areas and Central Java.
According to Minister Sulaiman, the farmer's stores will shorten the distribution lines from the farmers to traders, so that consumers will enjoy less expensive goods.
"So far, the distribution chains of food commodities are too long and complicated, so their selling prices to consumers are too high. We want to short cut the distribution lines," Minister Sulaiman said during a food exposition opening in West Sumatra on Tuesday.
He cited as an example the price of shallots, which was set at Rp6,000 per kilogram (kg) at the farmers level, but reached Rp36,000 per kg at the traders level during the fasting month this year.
"The same thing also happened with a number of other strategic commodities. Their prices could rise by hundreds of percent. But farmers did not enjoy the benefit of the price hikes," the agriculture minister said.
Due to frequently unstable prices, President Joko Widodo issued Presidential Regulation No. 71 of 2015 on Pricing and Storage of Basic Needs and Important Goods last June.
The presidential regulation is intended to guarantee adequate stocks and stabile prices of commodities traded in the markets, Teten Masduki, a member of the President's Communication Team at that time, noted.
The basic commodities include agricultural products such as rice, soybean, chili, shallots; industrial goods such as sugar, cooking oil, and flour; cattle and poultry, such as beef, chicken meat, and eggs; and aquaculture such as milk fish and tuna.
In the run-up to the Eid Fitr holidays last July, then Trade Minister Rachmat Gobel inspected the Kramatjati Wholesale Market in East Jakarta to check developments in the prices of basic necessities.
The basic necessities, however, saw price hikes. The price of curly red chili, for example, rose 12 percent from Rp25,000 per kilogram to Rp28,000 per kilogram. Also, the price of red jumbo chili rose 9.09 percent from Rp22,000 per kilogram to Rp24,000 per kilogram.
However, with the presence of the farmers shops, such price hikes are no longer expected to take place.
Therefore, the ministry of agriculture cooperated with Bulog to build farmers shops (TTI) with the aim of shortening the distribution lines of agricultural commodities so that consumers could purchase products at a reasonable price.
With warehouses having a storage capacity of four million tons, Bulog has the ability to keep strategic commodities in various regions, which are not owned by other private companies.
The TTI houses aim to purchase national agricultural products, especially essential strategic food commodities. The farmers stores will also maintain the stability of prices and provide easy access to consumers who want to buy basic necessities.
"The TTI will directly purchase the goods from farmers with advantageous prices and sell them directly to consumers at a cheaper price," the minister said.
The commodities that will be sold through the farmers shops include rice, sugar, cooking oil, soybean, shallots, red chili and beef.
The minister hoped that with the presence of the TTIs, farmers will not suffer losses and consumers will enjoy a fair price because some of the distribution chains are short cut.
He said that the TTIs are comparable to market operations that are launched every day, so that it creates stable prices of basic necessities.
"If this is already running well, it will be equal to market operations launched every day," he said after a meeting with Vice President Jusuf Kalla on Wednesday, Sept 16.
The opening of the TTI shops will be in cooperation with the ministry of agriculture, the ministry of trade and Bulog. The ministry of agriculture will form a 1,000-member group of farmers to prepare products, such as shallots, chili and rice.
Then Bulog, in cooperation with the trade ministry, will purchase the raw products to ensure the availability of the commodities at the TTI shops. Thus, a total of 1,000 TTI shops will be developed in 2016.
"It aims to stabilize prices. This is to cut the long supply chains from eight points to only three points," Sulaiman explained.
The TTI store system will become a permanent effort in ensuring the availability of goods and the stability of prices, officials said.
"This is a permanent solution so that we no longer need to launch market operations each time prices are on the rise," he said.***3***(T.A014/INE)(T.A014/A/BESSR/A. Abdussalam) 18-09-2015 21:53:1 |
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