Food items have been outrageous these days. Rice, sugar, and chili have been the headlines of newspapers for quiet sometime now. Main reason behind this price surge is believed to be the tight supply from the extreme weather from this past year that have disrupt harvests all over the country. Some economists also say that this is caused by increased demand from emerging countries, including Indonesia, related to their rapid economic expansion. In a nutshell, as people earn more, they eat more.
But I personally think that this time is a pretty bad one. Well its not like we are having major food shortage and people are dying of starvation on the streets. But this is Indonesia who probably eats rice more than any other country in the world, and the fact that we have imported some 800k tons of rice from Thailand so far is pretty worrying. Also, I heard that some people actually stole chilis from the farms at night so that they can sell it in the market with the skyhigh price. But nevertheless, I am still very grateful that food are still widely available and that the government is doing something about it. They decided to suspend the food products import duty for a while, so that scarcity of food can be prevented. The government also expect the price rise to soften pretty soon because harvesting season starts around late February until its peak in April.
Well, lets just pray that the harvest will go smoothly and that the price will stabilize itself soon (fingers crossed!)
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