A fierce dispute over grain occurred at the beginning of this year’s harvest. The government will issue a new regulation concerning purchase prices to maintain a balance.

The government must take immediate and extraordinary measures to save our food and strive to fulfill the farmers' wishes. Hopefully the slogan, "Let's make farmers prosperous" is not merely empty jargon.

The efforts of the State Logistics Agency to procure unhulled rice from farmers are still hampered by high prices. The price of unhulled rice in a number of areas has begun to fall with the expansion of harvest areas.

The government finally imported rice amid differences in national-reserve data. At the consumer level, rice prices have also increased.

Responding to the commotion over the plan to import one million tons of rice, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo finally intervened to explain that there would be no rice imports until June 2021.

Farmers have harvested 8.99 million hectares of paddy fields from January and September to yield 26.91 million tons of rice, according to data from Statistics Indonesia (BPS).

The area of rice fields affected by drought nationwide has increased sharply over the past two months, which will seriously affect food production. The government needs to anticipate the impact of the drought.