Jakarta. The National Food Agency (Bapanas) recently compared the food security situations in Indonesia versus that of Singapore, saying that the latter’s small size is the reason why it is easy for the city-state to feed its population.

Bapanas head Arief Prasetyo Adi was speaking at the World Food Safety Day conference in Surabaya on Friday when he made the comparisons.

“When it comes to food security, we are not like other countries. For instance, Singapore does not have farmers, so traders meet their food needs. So it is very easy for them [to feed the people], especially since Singapore is a small country,” Arief told the conference. 

“Now compare that to our country [Indonesia], which is home to 514 cities and regencies, over 17,000 islands. And we need to make sure that everyone across the archipelago is fed. We have to make sure that what they eat is healthy and safe for consumption,” Arief said.

He added: “That is why Indonesia’s food security should be based on food self-sufficiency and food sovereignty. By being self-sufficient, we must be able to produce strategic crops that we can grow on our lands domestically. Food sovereignty is when people can have access to what they want to eat.”

Singapore’s total land area spans 734.3 square kilometers. For comparison, Jakarta has a total land area of 661,5 square kilometers. Data also shows that Indonesia’s population size is almost 46 times that of Singapore. The Singaporean government reported that its country was home to 5.9 million people as of June 2023. The 2020 national census revealed that Indonesia boasted a population size of 270.2 million people. 

Singapore imports over 90 percent of its food. Last year, the Singapore Food Agency approved Indonesia as the country's new source of eggs and live chickens. 

Indonesia, on the other hand, produces its crops domestically, including rice -- a staple food item in Indonesian households. To prevent people from going hungry, Indonesia is aiming to produce 32 million tons of rice this year, although the country is still importing much of this staple food. The Central Statistics Agency (BPS) earlier this week revealed that Indonesia’s rice imports had grown a whopping 165.27 percent in January-May 2024, amounting to 2.2 million tons. Indonesia mainly imported its rice from Thailand over the said period.