Candidate Managers of Village Cooperatives Protest at Agrinas: What to Know - Tempo.co English

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Hundreds of candidate managers of the red and white village cooperative flocked to PT Agrinas Pangan Nusantara (Agrinas) office in Cawang, East Jakarta, on Monday, September 28, 2026. They are protesting the cooperative's placement issued by the state-owned firm.

Rahmat Saleh, one of the candidate managers, said those who came to Agrinas today were going to be deployed far from their original domicile, which he said was off the mark. 

The government, he said, earlier told the candidates that they would be placed according to their domicile, which was not reflected in the announcements made by Agrinas on Friday, September 25, 2026.

Some of the candidate managers were assigned far from their hometown. Saleh, who resides in Jakarta, was assigned to Southeast Sulawesi. "Some from Jakarta are assigned to Papua. The placement range can exceed 2,000 kilometers from the domicile," he said.

According to Saleh, the protesters brought two demands to Agrinas, as the implementer of the village cooperatives program. First, he said, the job placement of candidate managers should be based on their domicile, as outlined under Presidential Regulation No. 82 of 2026 concerning the village cooperatives program governance. 

The second demand, Saleh said, is for Agrinas to adjust the salary structure for the village cooperative managers if the placement cannot be contested. Because, he expressed, candidate managers who are placed far from their hometowns require  higher living costs. "But in reality, the salary is still the same regardless of the placement," he said.

Candidate managers were also not given enough time to prepare for their departure, as they are required to be at the location by October 1, 2026, a mere one-week window since the announcement on September 25. Agrinas, he said, also asked the candidate managers to approve their placement by Monday.

Saleh said more than a hundred candidate managers came to Agrinas to protest their placement. At present, he said, some representatives have been received by the President Director of PT Agrinas Pangan Nusantara Joao Angelo De Sousa Mota for an audience.

Tempo has attempted to contact Joao regarding the audience with the candidate managers of the village cooperatives, but no immediate response was given by the time of writing of this article. 

Cooperatives Minister Ferry Juliantono previously said the placement of village cooperative managers is carried out by Agrinas.