Riau Book - Riau Province's Division of the State Logistics Board (Bulog) is planning to purchase 5,000 tons of local farmer's rice in Riau and Riau Island provinces this year.

"The volume of our target (to buy farmer's rice) this year is the same as that last year (namely 5,000 tons)," Head of Bulog for Riu office Tommy Despalingga, said here on Sunday.

He said that that the aim of Bulog to purchase farmer's rice is to maintain price stability at farmer's rice production centers.

With Bulog buying farmer's rice, it is expected that rice price will remain high so that farmers will not disadvantaged.

Besides, it will also increase Bulog's stock for the period until the next harvest season, he added.

"This is one of the main tasks of Bulog to maintain the price stability at the farmer's level," stated Tommy.

In purchasing farmer's rice, Bulog will use the price sanctioned by the government (HPP) based on the Presidential Instruction (Inpres)in 2015, namely Rp7,300 per kilogram.

On the national scale, the Ministry of Agriculture has recorded that the current national rice stock, reaching 1.2 million tons, was still adequate. An additional 3.5 million tons will be added following the February 2016 harvest.

The government has not imported rice over the past 15 months, and this year, hopefully, there would be no rice imports.

"We hope our rice production would increase this year and will be higher than that of last year," Agriculture Minister Andi Amran Sulaiman noted after conducting a grand rice harvest in Rambigundam Village, Jember District, East Java, on Wednesday.

Therefore, the domestic food production needs to be increased as Indonesia will not import rice, according to the minister. (RB/ant)

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