Indonesia's Food Agency Seeks More Feed Corn for Poultry Farmers

The National Food Agency (Bapanas) in Indonesia is proposing an additional 150,000 metric tons of subsidized feed corn to help micro-scale poultry farmers manage rising feed costs. The proposal aims to stabilize egg and chicken prices by protecting the poultry-farming ecosystem.

Bapanas Deputy for Food Availability and Stabilization I Gusti Ketut Astawa said the agency's initial allocation of 213,200 tons for micro, small, and medium-scale farmers has already reached 49.97% as of August 18. The feed corn distribution has benefited 120,310 tons of farmers across 28 provinces.

The largest number of participating farmers is from East Java, with 3,672 recipients, followed by Central Java with 2,012. Bapanas hopes that the additional allocation will help farmers buy feed at relatively reasonable prices and maintain egg prices below the government's reference purchase price of Rp26,500 per kilogram.