Free Nutritious Meals is one of the programs initiated by the elected President of Indonesia, Prabowo Subianto. This program is one of the programs that has received a lot of attention from the Indonesian people. How could it not be? Who wouldn’t be tempted by a program that provides free meals at school? Although most people support it, there are also quite a few who have different opinions. The reason is, this program is one of the programs that is awaited but also receives a lot of criticism.

Lombok as one of the areas that still has a high poverty rate, this program is a long-awaited program, but in reality there are still many schools that have not been able to get access to this program.

Free Nutritious Meal Program

Quoted from Kompas.id MBG, previously known as the free lunch program, is a program launched by President Prabowo Subianto and Vice President Gibran Rakabuming Raka during the campaign.

The government officially implemented the Free Nutritious Meals or MBG program in 2025. If it is right on target, MBG helps overcome many problems, especially poverty.

MBG targets 19.47 million recipients, consisting of school children, toddlers, breastfeeding mothers, and pregnant women. The government through the National Nutrition Agency (BGN) this year has prepared a budget of IDR 71 trillion for MBG. Meanwhile, the price per portion of MBG is set by BGN at IDR 10,000.

According to BGN, the general goal of MBG is to increase nutritional intake and nutritional knowledge in the target group of program recipients. This program also has 4 specific goals.

First, increasing access to nutritious food, nutritional knowledge, and healthy eating patterns in students. Second, increasing achievement, student attendance participation, and reducing school dropouts. Third, utilizing local food ingredients and increasing the welfare of farmers and MSME actors. Fourth is reducing poverty.

A very large number with a total budget that is no less large. This proves that there are many schools and targets of this program that must be of concern. Then, over time, there were several problems with this program.

Problems with the Free Nutritional Meal Program

Taken from detik.com, in Bogor, there is a problem of child poisoning. The cause of hundreds of students in Bogor being poisoned by free nutritious meals (MBG) has been revealed. There are two bacteria that are the cause, namely Salmonella and E. Coli. Until now, 233 people have been recorded as victims of poisoning. They are kindergarten to high school students in Bogor. Of the 223 who were poisoned, 45 people were hospitalized, 49 were outpatients, and 129 experienced minor complaints.

Not only in Java, in Sulawesi, similar things were found. Quoted from Tempo, Bombana Police Chief Adjunct Senior Commissioner of Police (AKBP) Wisnu Hadi revealed the findings of 53 MBG packages that were not fit for consumption. The examination found that the quality of the karaage chicken meat had decreased. The chicken meat should have been stored in a freezer to maintain quality. However, in that case, the chicken meat was placed in a refrigerator cooler.

Then what about in Lombok? This poisoning case also occurred, namely in Central Lombok Regency. Taken from detik.com, this poisoning case was reported by the Head of the Health Service (Kadinkes) of Central Lombok, Suardi, who said that he confirmed the cause of the poisoning of five students at SDN Repuk Tunjang, Pringgarata Village, Pringgarata District, was due to E-coli. The conclusion was based on the results of laboratory tests from the NTB Food and Drug Supervisory Agency (BPOM).

Not only that, another problem with this program is that many MBG kitchens have closed due to lack of funds and many cases of fraud that have occurred. In fact, in Lombok there are many schools that have not experienced this program.

Is this program really being implemented at this time? With a very large budget and until now not all schools have been reached, although it does take time for this program to reach all schools throughout Indonesia. However, if we look at it and pay attention, there are still many issues that can be paid more attention to, such as environmental issues, health, and Indonesian education. In order to achieve the goal of a golden Indonesia, the government should have formulated the right strategy to improve human resources in Indonesia. If we look at the data taken from the World Population Review in 2025, Indonesia is ranked 30th in terms of reading interest. What will happen to young people without literacy? Although there has been an increase from the previous year, it feels like there are still many tasks in terms of increasing young people’s reading interest. Hopefully, if this program is to continue to be implemented, the government must look at the amount of budget and needs and the target targets must be right. However, it would be nice if a budget of that size could be allocated to other community needs.