August 22, 2025 | 07:12 am
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Minister of Agriculture Amran Sulaiman said the Indonesian government is coordinating with the sovereign wealth fund Danantara to allocate funds aimed at buying farmers' sugar. "Our initial plan is to set aside Rp1.5 trillion, which I believe is sufficient," said Amran to reporters at the Parliament Building in Jakarta on Thursday night, August 21, 2025.
Amran mentioned that the funds will be injected into the state-owned enterprise (SOE) in the food sector, ID Food. ID Food will use the funds to buy up farmers' sugar. "Thank God, we have ample stock. However, our concern is assisting the farmers, making the government an offtaker," he said.
In a Tempo report titled "Danantara's New Role: Purchasing Farmers' Sugar," several sugarcane farmers in East Java complained about the sugar stock lying around in warehouses owned by 17 factories in 13 regions. As of Monday, August 11, 2025, a total of 65 thousand tons of farmers' sugar in East Java remained unsold.
The Chair of the SGN Sugar Auction Team, Sunardi Edy Sukamto, said no sugar merchants dare to purchase them due to the abundance of refined and crystallized refined sugar in the market. The existence of this sugar has taken over the white crystal sugar produced from sugarcane, or farmers' sugar.
In response, Amran said he has put the ban on the sale of refined sugar, to maintain the prices of white crystal sugar produced by the farmers. "Let's not be selfish," he said.
He mentioned that the government has been working with law enforcement to take action against sellers of refined sugar in the market. "Some were caught in Central Java. South Kalimantan too, and, if I'm not mistaken, East Java as well."
The ban on retail sales of refined sugar for public consumption is laid out in Minister of Trade Regulation No. 1 of 2019 concerning Refined Sugar Trade, which came into effect in January 2019. But this regulation seemed to have often been disregarded. In August 2019, the Food Task Force, along with the Ministry of Trade, arrested five suspects who allegedly sold refined sugar as white crystal sugar.
Han Revanda Putra contributed to the writing of this article
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