The Agriculture Ministry is seeking to secure supplies of staple foods including sugar as the introduction of large-scale social restriction measures to slow the spread of COVID-19 may disrupt distribution, especially in Greater Jakarta.

While conducting an inspection at the Toko Tani Indonesia Center (TTIC), a grocery store in South Jakarta tasked with providing affordable food, Agriculture Minister Syahrul Syasin Limpo reassured the public that it had enough supplies of onion, garlic, eggs, chicken, rice, chili and cooking oil, but not sugar.

Short supplies of sugar were actually a concern among businesses and households well before the unfolding COVID-19 outbreak hit the country hard in March.

Due to a prolonged dry season in the past two years, the country’s sugar productivity was expected to fall by 10 percent this year, thereby causing demand to exceed supply by 29,000 tons, according to the Indonesian Sugar Association’s 2020 outlook released in February.

Read the full article here (thejakartapost.com – 10^th April 2020)

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