Food
security : A tough question for President Jokowi
John McCarthy ; Associate professor at
Crawford School of Public Policy, in the Australian National University’s
College of Asia and the Pacific. The article was first published in the New
Mandala of the ANU
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JAKARTA
POST, 09 November 2014
Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has moved into Indonesia’s presidential
palace. He comes to power with great expectations, notably among the millions
of villagers who voted for him. Jokowi’s platform included 18 measures to
address a key problem for Indonesia — food security. The vice-president,
Jusuf Kalla, is now working on a plan to achieve ‘food sovereignty’ within a
year.
In the past, when food prices rocketed, presidents Soeharto and
Sukarno fell from power. Indonesian policymakers see food insecurity as a
threat to stability and national development. With climate change now linked
to harvest failures, and fluctuating availability of food in global markets,
the food issue provokes national anxiety.
Five years ago the last president made food security the fifth
of 11 national priorities for his second term. But the country has yet to
meet his ambitious targets for self-sufficiency in corn, soy bean, sugar and
beef, and a 10 million ton rice surplus by 2014.
This agenda included developing food estates, and large scale
production by private and state corporations. Planners set out to address
problems in Java’s rice fields and extend the green revolution into
“sleeping” land off Java.
But should self-sufficiency be the chief aim of food policy? To
answer this, consider first the wider picture. Indonesia’s economy has grown
by over 6 percent since 2010. However, a third of children under five remain
stunted. Stunting refers to low height for age, and is an indicator of
chronic under nutrition. The World Bank says that Indonesia fares little
better than much poorer countries, such as Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos.
Indian economist Amartya Sen won the Nobel Prize after asking a
simple question: why does famine occur even when food is readily available?
He concluded food insecurity occurs due to the inability of the poor to
access food rather than due to a shortage of food.
Indonesia can aim to become self-sufficient by intensive
farming, using biochemical inputs and high investments by large corporations.
But many households may still be unable to access food. Indeed, Sen’s work,
now taken up the United Nations, suggests a different problem: how can we
help the poor gain the means to access food?
This brings up many challenges in helping the poor and food
insecure people, most of whom reside in Indonesia’s villages. These include
how to help these poor rural people gain access to productive land; protect
the ecology of farming; provide access to inputs, credit and extension
services; extend work opportunities in the rural economy; reform agricultural
markets; and roll out effective social safety nets for the urban poor.
Fortunately Indonesia’s policy thinkers have been working on
these issues. But much remains to be done.
The State Logistics Agency (Bulog) maintains a reserve stock of
rice. Imports are restricted to protect Indonesian rice farmers from the
dumping of cheap foreign food. However Bulog only buys rice from farmers at a
low floor price (HPP) at certain times of the year. For the most part farmers
are left in the hands of speculators and traders who manipulate prices.
Further, the system sets rice prices up to US$1 dollar above
international prices. This adds a burden for the poor who spend most of their
meager earnings on food. It also provides incentives to rice smugglers.
The last administration invited corporate investors to develop
food estates to grow rice to feed a growing number of city dwellers. With
mining and oil palm expanding rapidly, a lack of available land frustrated
the East Kalimantan food estate. West Kalimantan’s food estate continues to
limp ahead, but without meeting the ambitious hopes invested in it.
In the past Indonesia, India and China increased rice production
without shifting to large-scale farming. The ministry of agriculture has
programs to help the vast body of small and marginal farmers. These aim to
increase the planting frequency of farmers using hybrid rice varieties,
providing seedlings, fertilizer, technology and training to farmer groups in
field demonstration plots. However after long years of policy neglect,
progress remains slow.
Indonesia is experimenting with social safety nets. However with
29 million poor and around 40 percent of the population living around the
poverty line, targeting is difficult. One study found that only about 30
percent of the poor received all three of the main social assistance
programs.
The budget for the social safety net remains very low, only 1.2
percent of GDP; well below all the major countries of East Asia and the 2
percent level recommended by the World Bank.
In India, Brazil and South Africa the right to adequate food is
written into the national constitution. Legal cases brought by civil society
actors led to the conversion of this right into effective programs. Indonesia
has included food security, self-sufficiency and sovereignty in a new food
law.
Yet Indonesia needs an explicit legal formulation of the right
to adequate food to ensure political commitments are converted into programs
that really deal with hunger.
Good ideas can remain isolated from millions of poor people.
Despite excellent policy concepts, programs lack resources and capacity.
Meanwhile the temptation is to focus on national food self-sufficiency. But
the crux of the problem may be left aside.
President Jokowi, can you help under-resourced farmers and
develop effective safety nets for food insecure households? Moving beyond a
simple focus on national production targets, it’s time Indonesia’s leaders
focused on the real problem. ●
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