Food Scarcity
5:05 AM
In Indonesia according to Nawacita that has been declared by President Joko Widodo, Food Security is one of the main focus for his work period. However, although it almost two years of his work, people in agriculture sector seems pessimistic about this goal. There are a lot of problems to settle before we can aim for food security.
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| paddy field in Sukabumi |
What is Food Security?
Food security already becomes the main focus in this past reign. This goal is noted in Constitution of republic Indonesia article number 27 and Rome Declaration in 1996. Even in 2012, the act of food is already made. Food security, according to this act, is the condition when food is fulfilled for both the whole country and for its residents. This can be seen from the availability of food in quality and quantity, safe, diverse, healthy, equal, and affordable.
Actually, the act isn't about food security only. This act is about food enforcement as a whole. In this Act, there are food sovereignty, food resilience, and food safety too. It is included as a foundation of food enforcement along with benefit, equal access, sustainable, and fairness.
With a lot of hunger because of lack of food, food security has become the main focus of the United Nation. This we can see in sustainable development goals point number two about zero hunger. According to Food and Agriculture Organization cited by VOA Indonesia, there are approximately 19,4 million people who still starving. This is mainly caused by poverty.
Food in Indonesia?
Although the idea of equity is already known, in fact, food source mainly located in Java. To distribute it to another province off course it will cause the price increase. Moreover, the in island outside Java especially in the remote area the infrastructure is still low. So to distribute it equally it will be difficult.
On the other hands, we all know that there are exploding population in Indonesia. Off course to balance the food storage with the need we need to have the proportional agricultural land. However, according to prosperous village alliance in 2015, the land conversion rate is about 100 thousand hectare per year.
Along with the land conversion, the amount of farmer also decreased. from the same sources, farmer age in Indonesia under 34 is only 12,85 percent while the rest is above 34 years old. The average of their age is 52 years old. If we don't pay attention to this, the cases like Japan will happen in Indonesia too.
How Can This Happen?
As we know, Jokowi regime now concentrate on building infrastructure in the remote area. This is to make the development faster than before. However, to support the food resilience one province should have their own agricultural land. The innovation and invention should be made according to the need differences. Every province has varied need of food and they should be able to provide their own food. However, this will be impossible without innovation and invention. The local government should try to pay attention for this. Especially in Jokowi era which managing the drainage is one of his focus, we can take benefit from his focus to developing the agricultural land irrigation system.
We also should appreciate for Merauke. They can manage their land and it is one of the biggest rice sources for Indonesia. Unfortunately, because of the bad distribution system, the rice couldn't be distributed well. What I really proud about Merauke is, the city governor, Federik has made an agreement with Bandung to make an exchange. Merauke will distribute their food to Bandung while Bandung will facilitate them to use Smart City. It will be so good if his initiative needs to be followed by other city governors.
For the land conversion, actually, there are several reasons for it. First, the conversion of land can be caused because the farmer itself sold it. Why is that? Many believe this is because of the policy that doesn't take sides with the farmer. The value exchange of farmer was be said still low. Like the rice prices, that is so low. The price of Unhauled dry rice is Rp 3750/ kg, unhauled grind rice is Rp 4600/ kg, while for rice Rp 7300/ kg. Bulog as Government agency that manages this sector already gives an idea for the central government to make the price flexible. However, the newest rule still used Inpres No 5 2015 with the price described above.
Bulog, Director of Procurement Wahyu once said that Indonesia rice is the most expensive in ASEAN Country. Although it is the most expensive the high selling price doesn't seem to give a big impact to farmer welfare. According to Wahyu, this is because of incorrect subsidy allocation. He said it is best for the government to give subsidy for after selling phases. So although farmer has failed in their harvesting, the farmer will still get income.
Another problem here is Agraria conflict. The lack of land ownership can be one of factor why the land conversion happen. The case like in Karawang can be one of the examples. We have to make a long-term planning about how we allocated the land. And Land National Agency need to support this. The allocation should be clear and firm. From what I see in Karawang there are the big amount of land conversion from paddy field to property area. In my opinion, maybe the main reason is because of the development of fast train Jakarta-Bandung.
So the Solution?
I can't say it is the solution. However, in my humble opinion, we need to study all of the policy that will be made. It is not about which policy is sexier to write in media, but it is about how to make the right policy to support the farmer. By supporting farmer welfare, I believe the food security can be made. For the example is to allocate the subsidy to after selling phase, and to fix the buying price from the government. We can do this by reactivating the village unit union.
The innovation and invention should be made. As the land decreased we need to find the right seed that can produce more so although the land keeps decreasing food security will be still embodied. These must be followed by the farmer skill empowerment so they can use the invention or technology that has been made.
Of course, there is much more problem to do the right food enforcement. The government policy about import also needs to be studied again. Although it is true import is to make sure the food amount is fulfilled however I think import must become short term solution while waiting for infrastructure improvement for agricultural sectors.
And for us maybe we can try to make urban farming. It is easy anyway. It doesn't require soil, you can make it by using hydroponic technic. You can even use small spaces to do that. Let's try them!
So what will you contribute to help our country to embodied food security? Well, It depends on you.
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