Indonesia's Presidential Staff Chief Dudung to Revise Free Nutritious Meal Program After Student Criticism

President’s Chief of Staff Dudung Abdurachman met with students from Universitas Brawijaya in Malang to hear their criticism and suggestions on the government’s Free Nutritious Meal (MBG) program and broader economic and ecological policies. The students highlighted issues such as imprecise targeting of beneficiaries, regional disparities in implementation, and the need for academic involvement in monitoring and nutrition education.

Dudung said the administration will formally involve universities in overseeing MBG logistics and will launch a comprehensive evaluation. The planned overhaul focuses on three pillars: standardizing nutritional quality, ensuring commodity suitability, and prioritising delivery to regions with high nutrition vulnerability and the “3T” (remote, disadvantaged, frontier) areas. He also clarified the distinction between overall food self‑sufficiency and rice self‑sufficiency, noting that Bulog’s rice reserves are an emergency tool rather than a self‑sufficiency metric. Additionally, the discussion touched on the ageing farmer workforce and the need for long‑term strategies to attract young people to agriculture.