INDONESIA: Rice supplies adequate but prices hurting the poor

INDONESIA: Rice supplies adequate but prices hurting the poor

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"Nowadays even 1kg of rice is very precious. Staples are very expensive and poor people like us can hardly afford two meals a day," Sutini told IRIN, adding that the price of 1kg of rice had risen from 3,500 rupiah (about 40 US cents) to 5,000 rupiah.

Sutini was one of more than 1,000 people who queued outside the campus of the Indonesian Christian University in the heart of the capital, Jakarta, on 2 April for rice in a charity event organised by an inter-university student group called Forkot.

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Even in places where there is enough food, the prices are keeping the poor from eating. Even worse is a poor government that can't subsidize food to feed its poor when the country has enough food for them to eat.

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[edit on 11/4/08 by MikeboydUS]