It's harvest time amid pandemic
Even though Indonesia, especially the province of Aceh is currently facing a COVID-19 pandemic, it does not prevent the arrival of the harvest in one of the largest grain-producing areas in Sumatra.
The province of Aceh is now entering its initial quarterly harvest. Although it was worrying, all of it is now faced as usual by the local community.
Grain/Paddies prices are also expected to rise, despite market speculation that concerns farmers will be bought cheap grain prices, especially during this pandemic transportation for land routes under the strict supervision of government authorities. This is thought to be one of the factors that were initially feared by the cheapening of paddies prices in Aceh.
Concerns that initially became the local government's attention were eventually conducive, the local government guaranteed land transportation in Aceh to transport paddies outside the region. There is no rice factory that is able to process paddies into rice on a large scale in the province of Aceh making it every harvest season when farmers' paddies are sent outside the area to be processed.
North Sumatra is the only province that buys paddies from Aceh on a large scale. In fact, Aceh grain is bought more expensive than in North Sumatra. This is due to the fertility of the land of Aceh which makes grain plants in Aceh capable of producing super rice with adequate netto.
Of course the neighboring provinces pay a high cost for it. Even so, they also receive benefits that are no less great when the rice that has been processed into rice re-enter to Aceh. I knew you smile, yes we have abundant natural resources, but the lack of human resources makes Aceh less productive.
This has been going on since time immemorial, there is no local mobility of rice in Aceh in large numbers, although there are only a few small factories that are able to process paddies into the rice. It is also only limited to quota in the countryside. Rice milled in Aceh is unable to compete with rice supplied from North Sumatra, consumer brand behavior has made Aceh prefer external products to products from its own region.
This harvest season helps the farmers in the village, there is no use of a modern rice harvest machine. This is local wisdom. That was done so that people can get economic benefits from this ongoing harvest. Especially now, the people in Aceh are facing the month of Ramadan, the next 3 weeks Eid arrives. In the midst of this co-19 pandemic, of course the harvest season was greeted with great fanfare considering the increasingly weak economy of the village community.
