Published on August 11, 2025, by TEMPO
by Alif Ilham Rajriadi
President Director of PT Agrinas Pangan Nusantara, Joao Angelo De Sousa Mota, resigned. He mentioned Danantara’s role. Why?
Indonesia’s state-owned food company PT Agrinas Pangan Nusantara President Director Joao Angelo De Sousa Mota resigned from his position as a high-ranking official at the company because he felt he had failed to achieve food security. “I feel ashamed and deeply responsible for everything that happened over the past six months,” Joao said in his office in East Jakarta on Monday, August 11, 2025.
Joao said he had a grand vision in securing Indonesia’s food security. However, he thought that the Investment Management Agency Daya Anagata Nusantara (BPI Danantara) had not been fully supportive of the vision, although the agency was formed to help state-owned enterprises achieve their best performance.
“Danantara was tasked by President Prabowo Subianto to become a new entity capable of identifying business and investment opportunities. One of these is in the food sector. We believe Danantara has yet to understand or even grasp the sense of crisis that our food situation is not well,” Joao said.
According to Joao, the government needs to ensure food availability and maintain food security for the sake of the people. Still, Joao has not seen enough intervention from the government in this regard, especially from Danantara, which supervises state-owned enterprises alongside the Ministry of State-Owned Companies.
Joao hopes the government can provide support to farmers in a bid to increase their productivity. However, he said, the government has not been fully committed to achieving this target, resulting in soaring food prices, such as rice.
“I was so excited to contribute, to help build our farming community and our agriculture, but we were left without support from the president’s aides who created a convoluted bureaucracy that was almost impossible to achieve,” Joao said.