Membangun Peradaban Bersama Rakyat

Tejo Wahyu Jatmiko | The Jakarta Post

For President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, food self-sufficiency is the ideology of our future. This statement was conveyed by the President at the opening of a working meeting in 2011.

Although Yudhoyono asked all levels of government to immediately take steps to counter and stabilize increasing food prices, it has not yet become an urgent priority. There seems to be an error in understanding by our President in looking at the nation’s food needs. Why is this so?

The price of chili peppers has soared since December, reaching a level that now exceeds the price of meat – and giving everyone a major headache.

Housewives and food merchants have complained about the price hike, while the authorities have been busy arguing. Climate change was the first suspect, while speculators were next and then consumers were blamed.

The Agriculture Minister asked consumers not to eat chilis, while the Trade Minister advised people to consume bottled chili sauce or dried chilis. Later, the government asked people to plant chilis in their backyards.

The price and availability of chili is a good measure of our food management policies. Imagine, amid this pressing problem, policymakers are arguing over useless responses.

Although chilis are not among the nine basic commodities, its price shocks have forced us to react. We are still lucky that we have not been directly pressed to open the import tap, partly because the commodity cannot last very long.

How about the management of other types of food? The government is similarly still fond of momentary solutions to quell political turmoil. Food affairs are always reduced to the availability of rice.

The calculations are always about how many million tons of rice we have and how much we should import in the name of food security. This has not changed since we won an award from the FAO in 1985 and declared our self-sufficiency in 2008.

In fact, the amount of rice imported by the government remains high, and topped 1.23 million tons
in 2010.

Strategic food commodities other than rice, which consumes the government’s attention due to its high demand, are corn, soybeans, sugar and beef. Those commodities are also experiencing shortages.

Corn production in 2010 was 18 million tons, while corn imports were 0.8 million tons.

Total soybean production neared 1 million tons while imports reached 1.2 million tons. Sugar production hit 2.39 million tons with imports reaching 400,000 tons. Indonesia produced 450,000 tons of beef and imported 78,000 tons last year. Having the fourth longest coastline in the world, the country ironically imported around 1 million tons of salt in 2010.

Not to mention the fact that we import 100 percent of our wheat; a trend which unfortunately is expected to continue.

In 2011 the import of wheat is expected to increase to 6 million tons. The import of those five food commodities cost US$5.197 billion of our foreign exchange reserves, which equaled one-fifth of the 2010 budget.

Indonesian food security is in a very alarming condition due to the excessively high import figures.

Our stomachs depend on the market, whereas the food market is very volatile and prices tend to rise sharply.

So the statement by Yudhoyono that food self-sufficiency is the ideology of our future is largely irrelevant and questionable. It should be stated that food self-sufficiency is one of the nation’s targets that must be pursued starting from now.

It should also be remembered that even developed industrial nations such as the US, Japan and the European Union cannot neglect their own food problems.

Over the last 10 years nations have tended to aggressively secure food by building barns in other countries, either by buying or renting land on a scale of thousands of hectares. This effort has usually been disguised as food estates.

Amid rising population rates and climate change, which both complicate difficulties in food supply, it is important for the government to immediately take concrete steps in three areas.

First, in the field of production, the arrangement of agrarian resources must favor small producers.

There must be land grabbing restrictions on big investors, improved infrastructure, an increased reliance on local resources, improved self-reliance in terms of seed technology and agricultural production and targeted capital subsidies for farmers.

Second, food trade and distribution must be improved.

Third, consumption patterns must change by introducing local foods, improving education and providing food diversification incentives.

All of these steps are already stated in the Medium Term Development Plan (MTDP) for food security.

Alteration of Yudhoyono’s point of view is necessary, and he must evince the political will to implement the MTDP.

If we want to achieve the ideals of Indonesian welfare as stated in the Constitution, food self-sufficiency should be attempted starting now, by us and for the welfare of all.

Sumber: http://desasejahtera.org/