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The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that the country’s food system is vulnerable to crisis. The impact of the pandemic on the food system has varied since there have been various specific conditions for the food system across Indonesia (McCharty et al. 2021).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The most common impact is disrupted food distribution which has implications for food availability and affordability, not only at regional and national levels, but also internationally (Ploeg 2020).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the midst of a potential food crisis such as warnings from the world food organization (Food and Agriculture Organization) at the start of the pandemic, the Government of Indonesia took a quick response by launching a project to increase the national food supply (food estate). This project is part of a national strategic project released through Presidential Regulation no. 109 in 2020. Last March, the food estate celebrated its two-year anniversary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Food estates or large-scale food complexes, which have a track record of failure in the past, are now emerging in a more critical context. He released his release when the pandemic showed that today’s dominant global food system, which is too dependent on commodity supply chains, is in fact vulnerable in times of crisis (Ploeg 2020).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the midst of the urgency of warnings to contain the rate of global warming, the urge to transform the agricultural and food systems to be more sustainable is non-negotiable. Meanwhile, from the nutritional aspect, Indonesia is facing a double burden. Tengkes (stunting) due to minus nutritional intake is still a serious problem. While people with obesity and other degenerative diseases are quite acute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Under these circumstances, is food estate the right choice?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Food as a human right<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Food estate refers to the ideals of national food security and sovereignty. In the analysis of the geographer economist Jeffrey Neilson, this reference shows that food discourse is built on the nation’s abstract imagination (Neilson 2017).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Often practices that depart from this point of view fail to see the concrete dimensions of food security and the fulfillment of the right to food locally, at the individual, household and community levels (Hadiprayitno, 2010). It is therefore important to examine how food estates have implications for food conditions at the local level specifically for the farming communities involved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Food issues are often discussed through the lens of food security and sovereignty but are rarely understood as a human right. The content of the right to food is indeed contained in the definition of food sovereignty according to Law Number 18\/2012 concerning Food, but there is no explanation about the right to food itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is stated that “food sovereignty is the right of the state and nation that independently determines food policies that guarantee the right to food for the people and which gives the community the right to determine a food system that is in accordance with the potential of local resources”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thus, according to the framework of the Law, the food policy set by the state must, first, guarantee the people’s right to food. Second, the community’s right to determine the food system in accordance with its local resources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This conception gives us signs in observing the role of the state. To what extent can the state in determining food policy guarantee the fulfillment of the right to food and the right of the community to determine their food system?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The understanding that food is a fundamental right as a prerequisite for the fulfillment of other human rights has become a global agreement referring to Point 4 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Indonesia is one of the countries that have ratified the Covenant. The Covenant defines the right to adequate food as a condition that \u201cis realized when every man, woman and child, individually or together in the community, has physical and economic access at all times to adequate food. worthy or the means to obtain it\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a country that has ratified the Covenant, the Government of Indonesia as a representative of the state and duty bearer should realize this right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On this basis, FoodFirst Information and Action Network (FIAN) Indonesia conducted a study to examine the extent to which food estates can realize the right to food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Food industry policy<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Food estate and the agricultural development policies that support it are modes of agricultural regulation designed and implemented for a specific purpose. This food estate is designed so that the organization of production carried out by farmers is integrated with the agribusiness supply chain and is export-oriented. Commodity-based agricultural development approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For example, a food estate in Central Kalimantan with commodities of rice and cassava. North Sumatra with horticulture (industrial potatoes, shallots, and garlic). East Nusa Tenggara with a beef cattle farm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maritime food estate in Bali with vaname shrimp commodity. It needs to be underlined here, the implementation of food estate takes place in a geographical, agroecological, socio-cultural context, as well as food commodity choices, production organization and the involvement of different actors in each location.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our study takes the case of a food estate in Ria-ria village, Humbang Hasundutan, North Sumatra. One important characteristic of food estates is examined with regard to the design of agricultural development which is based on the government’s farmer corporation concept with a closed loop model (closed system) with the initiation of the private sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Farmer corporations are institutional engineering of farmer production organizations to increase economies of scale through capital accumulation. This farmer institution is associated with a closed loop model so that farming businesses will be integrated with the food industry by (private) agribusiness companies. Assuming that the farmers’ corporations or institutions will strengthen when integrated with the food industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Integration of farmers with agribusiness in the food estate of North Sumatra for the production of horticultural commodities, namely industrial potatoes, shallots, and garlic. This commodity was chosen because it has high economic value, is needed by the food industry, and is able to serve global market demands. It should be emphasized that this commodity crop is relatively new to Ria-ria farmers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The key mechanism of the closed loop model that functions to integrate farmers with agribusiness is concretely manifested in the contract farming pattern.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Contract farming is a production organization model linking smallholder farmers based on domestic labor with contractors. In this case, an agribusiness company, through a production-marketing contract agreed at the beginning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The contractor will invest agricultural inputs according to the type needed to farmers, for example, seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides. Farmers are required to sell their harvests to contractors including paying credit for input loans in advance in addition to the net profit received.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It’s no wonder that in the design of the North Sumatra food estate, the government involved and allocated land plots for agribusiness companies, such as Indofood, Parna Raya, and CalbeeWings, which will act as investors and offtakers of crops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They are transnational companies, thus their business interests lie in commodity supply chains at the international level even if they include the domestic market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When farmers enter into a contractual relationship, they will be vertically integrated in the food commodity chain. Vertically, it means that farmers are the suppliers of raw materials for the food industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a scheme like this, the commodity must comply with industry feasibility standards. Consequently, the cultivation of farmers’ crops is subject to the prescriptions of the food industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In commodity chain analysis, this pattern is classified as buyer-driven (Gereffi, 1999). Commodity production is determined by the buyers of the harvest, not by the direct producers (farmers). This kind of relationship results in the loss of farmers’ control in determining the types of plants to be planted, bargaining power regarding selling prices, and the diminishing knowledge of farmers on local plant cultivation techniques.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the perspective of critical agrarian studies, this condition is referred to as the corporation’s ‘taking power’ of farmers (Borras et al. 2012).<\/p>\n\n\n\n In practice, the new contract farming pattern is implemented in the second planting season. In the first planting season, a food estate farming business with state aid capital, accompanied by assistance from field officers from the Ministry of Agriculture and Polbangtan internship students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All capital preparation for production activities, ranging from land clearing, land certification, road and irrigation infrastructure, farmer group training, as well as the provision of inputs, agricultural production facilities, and farming capital, are all borne by the State Budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In other words, the government has played a role in preparing the physical, institutional, and initial capital infrastructure for the contract farming episode between farmers and the private sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By looking at the food estate design above, what is not mentioned in the narrative of food security or sovereignty is actually an effort to industrialize the food agriculture sub-sector which has been supported by smallholders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The question is, how does this industrialization process have implications for the right to food specifically for food producers, namely farmers?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our field research identified that the main problem of the North Sumatra food estate is that the concrete-specific conditions of local food agriculture are neglected in the mechanism of food agriculture development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is associated with top-down and fast-paced project implementation. The specific conditions referred to are related to historical, cultural, socio-economic, and environmental aspects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In fact, based on past studies on food estates, it is stated that every practice of agricultural policy will have implications for relations over land, labor, and markets as well as for the creation of local food security\/vulnerabilities conditions (McCharty & Obidzinski 2017).<\/p>\n\n\n\n In relation to land, instead of solving local agrarian problems, land certification as the initial gateway to start a food estate has the potential to lead to the commodification of land and lead to disputes over land claims (adat) either within members or between communities covered by the food estate area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Food estates tend not to consider the de facto and de jure status related to the history of the area designated as the project site. For Ria-ria’s farmers, the initial stage of land clearing for the food estate (1,000 hectares) is land that is recognized as “the customary land of the Si Ria-ria people”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This acknowledgment was given by the Regent of North Tapanuli through the Decree of the Regent of the Head of the Level II North Tapanuli Region No. 138\/Kpts\/1979. This recognition is the result of the struggle of the Ria-ria people in claiming their ancestral lands from the state reforestation project in the mid 1970s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The certification that divides customary land into small parcels (maximum two hectares) belonging to individuals is contradictory to the recognition of community-based customary ownership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, evidence of government recognition of customary lands in the past was not accommodated in the certification process. As a result, there has been a polemic regarding the boundaries of customary land between the residents of Ria-ria and the neighboring village (Parsingguran), both of which are included in the food estate area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Land certification is also a mechanism to bind farmers to contract farming relations. The certification process includes a requirement that farmers are required to participate in the food estate program if their land is to receive legal recognition from the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unfortunately, there is no written explanation regarding the time limit and distribution of burdens and benefits from contract farming that should have been conveyed at the outset. In fact, contract farming practices usually have a timeframe (for example, one season) until farmers have a bargaining position and the opportunity to leave the contract relationship if it turns out that the results they get are deemed detrimental (White and Wijaya 2022).<\/p>\n\n\n\n A contractual relationship can be assumed to occur in the condition that the parties to the agreement are on equal footing and the agreement is free and open. With conditions before the certification process starts, farmers have no choice whether or not to be involved in the contract.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That is, through these conditions, farmers are implicitly in a position as unequal subjects in the context of contract farming relations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The implications are worth considering. What if the yields are bad while the farmers have agreed to a contract and are bound to repay the credit for agricultural inputs? With what will the farmer pay off the financial obligations arising from the contract?<\/p>\n\n\n\n In many cases, as often happens in the context of smallholder oil palm, smallholders will be cornered and forced to sell their land to escape the burden of credit. Land release is possible because legally the land is owned individually through a certification process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At this point soil commodification comes to the fore. This will at the same time break the community-based social relations that underlie the customary land tenure system, to be reconfigured into capitalistic social relations that place land as a commodity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With regard to the workforce, the food estate has reorganized the mobilization of work, namely, the allocation of farmers’ time and energy, to devote to food estate agriculture. The impact is significant for the condition of household food security of farmers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To see the impact, it is necessary to first understand the local agricultural culture and rhythms that are disrupted when the food estate intervenes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Agriculture in Ria-ria is carried out by farmer households based on household labor. The general pattern of agriculture is a combination of subsistence and commercial farming. Subsistence farming produces staple foods that are consumed directly by households, such as rice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, commercial farming is cultivation on dry land and\/or forest to earn cash income. These plants include coffee, frankincense, and andaliman. All three are plants that have sublimated the culture of the Batak people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our identification found a rough picture of about 60-70% of Ria-ria’s farming households with sufficient rice yields for family consumption for one year. Therefore, cash income from cultivation in dry land and\/or forest contributes significantly in meeting household food needs in addition to other basic needs. This means that subsistence and commercial farming are complementary. Both are the basis of household food security of farmers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The management of the two farming patterns with different planting periods and cultivation treatments conditions the division and mobilization of work within the farmer’s household. Both by gender and generation, in terms of land category and season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The presence of a food estate raises new work needs that have an impact on the allocation of time and energy that is usually devoted to rice fields, dry land, and forests. Not all farming households have the capacity for labor and capital to meet the new job needs due to the clearing of land for food estates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It should be underlined, the start of the food estate’s first planting season (December 2020) coincides with the rice planting season in the rice fields and the andaliman harvest season in the forest. Both are phases when the need for labor in both types of land is relatively high.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When household workers are shifted to food estates, the outpouring of labor for rice fields and forests is reduced. Since productivity in a small-scale farming pattern is strongly influenced by the intensity of labor, the reduction has an impact on crop yields.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our field research found that a farmer household experienced the following two patterns. Employment on food estate lands causes the cultivation of cash crops in the forest to be neglected and the income from the forest decreases. Or, work in the fields is neglected until the rice yields decline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In fact, there are households who decide to rent out their rice fields because the capacity of the household labor is not sufficient to work all the land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the other hand, the implementation of farmer economic institutions (joint business groups\/KUB) which was formed to facilitate the sale of harvested crops and the management of group capital is also problematic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n KUB stipulates that sales of harvested produce will be allocated into three parts: 60% as direct income for farmers, 30% for capital for the next planting season and managed by KUB, 10% for KUB development capital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The study found that some food estate farmers were disappointed that funds from the sale of their first cropping season crops in March were delayed in disbursement for up to three months after harvest. The 30% fund for the second planting season has not yet been disbursed (field studies will be conducted in September 2021). The management of the 10% fund is not clear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This institutional problem is crucial because the smooth operation of the food estate agriculture relies on the performance of this institution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Indications of the breakdown of institutional management indicate the need for a thorough evaluation of the implementation of farmer corporations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The combination of the above conditions results in a decrease in the level of food availability and affordability at the household level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As an illustration, a woman farmer said that when her household was involved in a food estate, rice yields decreased by almost half, while income from forest products decreased. As a result, spending on food needs is reduced. Women, as sitiop puro (household treasurers), must find new strategies to feed the family in the midst of such conditions. Among other things, by combining the consumption of cassava with rice, in order to maintain the adequacy of available rice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the other hand, the prevalence of tengkes in Humbang Hasundutan in 2019 reached 22.15%, higher than the WHO standard which sets the highest limit in a country of 20%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How is it possible that efforts to handle tengkes can be optimal if the availability and affordability of food at the household level is disrupted? Meanwhile at the village level, the intervention for tengkes still relies on the provision of food assistance from outside the village and formula milk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The case studies we studied indicate that large-scale agricultural developments such as food estates are not sensitive to socio-economic and cultural conditions of agriculture. Also not sensitive to food and nutrition issues at the community level where the project is located.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Market-based policies?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Reflecting the findings of the study on the implementation of food estates in certain local-specific contexts with the dimensions of rights in the Food Law leads to the conclusion, that the right to adequate food for the community is not guaranteed. Likewise, the community’s right to determine their own food system is not fulfilled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What happens, the government determines the orientation and food system for the community through high-value commodity crops. This commodity is to supply raw materials for the food industry and exports without really considering local food resources and systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Therefore, the food security claim that the government wants to realize is exchange-value-based resilience. This approach assumes that if farmers produce high value commodities, this will be more profitable and the profits received can guarantee household food security.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Based on field findings, practices based on these assumptions tend to be unproven.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The content of the right to food in the Food Law implies that food producers (farmers) have the right to determine their food or agricultural system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The HAPG perspective views the priority of fulfilling producer rights. However, the food estate in North Sumatra, which is based on contract farming, reflects the process towards the erosion of the HAPG of producers (farmers).<\/p>\n\n\n\n The autonomy of farmers to determine agriculture is subordinated to the demands of the food industry through contracts for investment and offtakers from agribusiness companies. Instead of fulfilling the rights of farmers as producers, the state tends to facilitate the private sector business interests of the food industry as consumers of the work of farmers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Food estate-style agricultural development is more appropriate as a profit-oriented (interest) market-based policy. The demand for the agro-industrial market is a priority that precedes the obligation to fulfill the special HAPG for the farming community involved in the food estate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The government needs to seriously review the implementation of the food estate by considering the mandate of the Food Law. This relates to the mandate of giving the community the right to determine the food system based on local resources and prioritizing the fulfillment of government obligations to realize the right to decent food for the community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Referensi<\/strong>: <\/p>\n\n\n\n Borras, S.M., dkk.\u2019 Land grabbing and global capitalist accumulation: key features in Latin America\u2019. Canadian Journal of Development Studies\/Revue canadienne d\u2019\u00e9tudes du d\u00e9veloppement, 2012, 33(4), 402\u2013416.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gereffi, Gary. \u2018A Commodity Chains Framework for Analyzing Global Industries\u2019, 1999.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hadiprayitno, Irene I. \u2018Food Security and Human Rights in Indonesia\u2019. Development in Practice<\/em>, February 2010.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mc Carthy, John F., and Krystof Obidzinski. \u2018Framing the Food Poverty Question: Policy Choices and Livelihood Consequences in Indonesia\u2019. Journal of Rural Studies<\/em> 54 (August 2017): 344\u201354. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.jrurstud.2017.06.004<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mc Carthy, John F, Yunita Triwardani Winarto, Henri Sitorus, Pande Made Kutanegara, and Vania Budianto. \u2018COVID-19 and Food Systems in Indonesia\u2019. ACIAR<\/em>, COVID-19 and food systems in the Indo-Pacific, 2020, 52. https:\/\/www.aciar.gov.au\/publication\/covid-19-and-food-systems-indo-pacific\/4-covid-19-and-food-systems-indonesia<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Neilson, Jeff, and Josephine Wright. \u2018The State and Food Security Discourses of Indonesia: Feeding the Bangsa\u2019. Geographical Research<\/em> 55, no. 2 (May 2017): 131\u201343. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1111\/1745-5871.12210<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ploeg, J. D. v. d. \u2018From biomedical to politico-economic crisis: the food system in times of Covid 19\u2019. Journal of Peasant Studies 47:5, pp. 944-972, 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n White, Ben, and Hanny Wijaya. \u2018What Kind of Labour Regime Is Contract Farming? Contracting and Sharecropping in Java Compared\u2019. Journal of Agrarian Change<\/em>, 21 October 2021, joac.12459. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1111\/joac.12459<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n *Penulis: Fuad Abdulgani adalah <\/strong>dosen di Jurusan Sosiologi Universitas Lampung dan peneliti FIAN Indonesia. Laksmi A. Savitri<\/strong> adalah Ketua Dewan Nasional FIAN Indonesia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n