(Bloomberg) — Indonesia has started its program of free school lunches, which is aimed at improving health and educational outcomes and could cost as much as $30 billion a year as the rollout broadens.
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The meals were a campaign promise from President Prabowo Subianto who took office in October, and could eventually reach around 83 million people a day. The program will help boost the nation’s milk consumption, and Indonesia plans to expand the domestic dairy industry to meet higher demand.
Indonesia has set aside 71 trillion rupiah ($4.39 billion) for the lunch program in the 2025 budget, with meals to include rice, chicken meat, eggs, vegetables and milk. The initial phase will only provide food to students, with pregnant and breastfeeding women, and toddlers to be included at a later stage.
Southeast Asia’s largest economy is embarking on an ambitious plan to boost its soft infrastructure as growth slows and the fiscal deficit remains manageable. Last year’s budget gap was likely smaller than the estimated 2.7% of gross domestic product, and will stay below the legal limit of 3% this year, Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said last week.
On Sunday afternoon, the kitchen of the Palmerah service unit in West Jakarta was bustling as a crew of people readied lunch boxes for 11 schools in the area, according to Yudha Permana, the head of the unit. Along with the staples of rice and milk, the meals included oranges and tofu, he said.
Palmerah is one of an expected 30,000 service units being set up by Indonesia to run the free meal program, with each designed to serve 3,000 students. In the first three months, the program is expected to provide three million meals, gradually increasing the service over the next four years.
One in five children under the age of five in the archipelago of 275 million people is considered too small for their age. Poor nutrition and school attendance means Indonesian students score lower in mathematics, reading, and science than peers, and their performance is deteriorating.
To support the greater consumption of milk, Indonesia plans to import one million breeder cows over the next four years to boost domestic production. The local industry can only currently provide about 21% of demand, with the the rest of the milk shipped predominantly from Australia and New Zealand.
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