Indonesia‘s Transigration Ministry Praises Free Nutritious Meal Program
The Spokesperson of the Ministry of Transmigration, Irwan Fecho, has expressed appreciation for the launch of the Free Nutritious Meal (MBG) program, which began on Monday, January 6, 2025. He deemed the program a testament to President Prabowo Subianto’s commitment to humanitarian efforts, aiming to ensure the growth of Indonesia’s future generations into intelligent, healthy, and competitive citizens.
In this program, President Prabowo emphasized a target distribution of 3 million people within the January-March 2025 period. The Ministry of Transmigration, with its extensive experience in managing transmigration areas, has expressed strong commitment in supporting the program.
The Ministry of Transmigration plays a strategic role, particularly due to the transmigration areas’ potential rich natural resources that support food security, including fertile agricultural land. Irwan further mentioned that the Minister of Transmigration, Iftitah Sulaiman, had conducted roadshows with various ministries and planned further collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture (Kementan), the Food Agency, and the National Nutrition Agency to ensure the sustainability and quality of food ingredients in the MBG program.
He added, "In transmigration areas, there are many potential commodities, such as paddy, other food crops, and livestock and fisheries that can contribute to national food self-sufficiency." Irwan took the example of Merauke, where the Ministry of Agriculture had planned to optimize land up to 45,000 hectares, with 30,000 hectares located within the Salor transmigration area.
With the available land and experienced human resources, Irwan hoped that the MBG program could run smoothly and provide maximum benefits for Indonesian communities. Looking ahead, the Ministry of Transmigration hopes to continue to boost productivity in transmigration areas to support local, regional, and even national food self-sufficiency.
"We want transmigration areas not only to meet their own food needs but also to have surplus production that can support food self-sufficiency outside the transmigration areas," Irwan said, "By achieving this, we aim to create a healthy, intelligent, and forward-looking young generation."
This article was first published by (maa/maa)
