Currently, the government only subsidizes two types of fertilizers, urea and NPK.

REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA — PT Indonesian fertilizer aims to produce about 8,096,000 tons of urea this year. In addition to the stock remaining at the beginning of the year of more than 867,000 tons, the total stock of urea-based fertilizers reached more than 8,963,000 tons.

“If there is a change in the allocation of subsidized urea fertilizer to around 4 million tons, at least we still have reserves of 4 million more tons if there is a need for subsidies Otherwise, we will do it without subsidy.” he explained during a press conference with the Coordinating Ministry of Economic Affairs in Jakarta on Friday (15/7/2022).

Then, for NPK fertilizers, it is expected to produce approximately 3,083,500 tons throughout 2022, plus the initial stock of 331,754 tons. Thus, the total reached 3,415,254 tons.

“Now the NPK allocation is around 2.4 million, so hopefully that will be enough to meet the needs,” he said.

Of note, Pupuk Indonesia is mandated to distribute subsidized fertilizer according to the predetermined allocation. Currently, the budget allocation set by the government is around Rp 25.28 trillion, distributed to at least 16 million farmers.

Gusrizal said his party currently has a control room to see fertilizer stocks in all districts in Indonesia. This is to monitor its availability in each area.

“So every morning we monitor what stock is yellow, green. It is our material to make deliveries, improvements or repairs if there are distribution problems due to weather conditions and other factors” , did he declare.

He added that one of the raw materials for fertilizers comes from Russia. The imported material is potassium for the production of NPK fertilizer.

Thus, the Russian-Ukrainian war also disrupted the supply of Indonesian fertilizers. Additionally, shipments from Eastern European countries such as Belarus were also affected. In fact, these countries are the biggest importers of fertilizers for Indonesia.

“When we talk about NPK, N comes from natural gas. Our P is still a bit loose because it comes from North Africa and the Middle East on average. Actually, Fertilizer Indonesia has to import it, we get it from Canada, Belarus and Russia, so these are now conflict zones,” Gusrizal explained. Still, Pupuk Indonesia would like to thank the government for their support in providing natural gas as the main ingredient for fertilizers.