<![CDATA[ABSTRACTThe Free Nutritious Meal Program (Makan Bergizi Gratis/MBG) has been positioned as a strategic government policy to strengthen food security in North Sumatra, yet little empirical work has ranked the many factors, constraints, and strategies that jointly determine its effectiveness. This study analyzes the priority of factors, constraints, and strategies for optimizing the MBG program as a food security strategy in North Sumatra Province. A qualitative approach was applied using the Analytic Network Process (ANP) to capture interdependence among clusters. Data were collected through in-depth interviews and pairwise-comparison questionnaires administered to nine purposively selected informants (three experts, three practitioners, three regulators) and processed with Super Decisions software. Results show that within the food security cluster, food availability (GM = 0.259) is the dominant priority; within the MBG program cluster, menu nutritional quality (GM = 0.294) ranks highest; within the human-resource cluster, manager competence (GM = 0.337) is most decisive; recipient-data accuracy (GM = 0.281) is the foremost constraint; and strengthening the local food supply chain (GM = 0.278) is the top-priority strategy. All clusters recorded a Kendall's Coefficient of Concordance of W = 1.000, indicating very high agreement among informants. These findings indicate that MBG's effectiveness as a food security strategy depends less on expanding coverage than on securing local food supply, safeguarding nutritional quality, strengthening managerial competence, and correcting recipient data, providing an empirical basis for food policy formulation in North Sumatra.]]>
