Food Security for Indonesia Should Be Top Priority, Experts Warn

The Jakarta Globe, Mar 10, 2014


Jakarta. Sukarno, Indonesia’s founding president, once warned that “food supply is a question of life and death for a nation, if citizens’ food needs cannot be met, it is a catastrophe.”

Despite this warning, Indonesia continues to divert its resources from its agricultural sector, causing it to import various food staples and risking the nation’s independence, agriculture researchers have said.

With an abundance of natural resources and a vast land area, Indonesia is probably the most dependent agrarian country, according to Herry Suhardiyanto, rector of the Bogor Institute of Agriculture.

Herry says that even though Indonesia won its political freedom 68 years ago, the nation is yet to be fully liberated.

“Statistics show that Indonesia is still among countries that are importing huge amounts of food staples, and the imports increase every year,” Herry said.

Last month, sugar processor Industri Gula Nusantara, for instance, announced it was planning to import 100,000 tons of raw sugar due to difficulties in securing sufficient domestic sugarcane supplies.

Data released by the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) covering the period from January to September 2013, show that Indonesia imported a number of food staples from other countries, including Thailand, Vietnam, India, China and the Philippines.

Indonesia imported 353,000 tons of rice worth $183 million, 2 million tons of maize worth $578 million, 74,000 tons of onion worth $34 million, 38,000 tons of garlic worth $32 million, 17,000 tons of tea worth $23 million, and 14,000 tons of coffee worth $35 million.

Despite having the world’s second-longest coastline, the country also imported salt, mainly from Australia and India. The BPS recorded that Indonesia imported 1.5 million tons of salt worth $69.5 million during that period.

Dependent nation

Herry claims that the current food import reliance was evidence that the country is no more independent now than when it was colonized by the Netherlands or
Japan.

“This is another way to say that our dining table is not liberated at all,” he said.

Around 70 percent of Indonesia’s 250 million people are employed in or dependent on the agricultural sector.

The vast majority are smallholders with an average ownership of 0.3 hectare, much less compared to Thailand or Vietnam, where farmers own an average four hectares each.

Winarno Tohir, chairman of the Indonesian Progressive Fishermen and Farmers Association (KTNA), said the nation has been caught in an import trap.

“We were once at the stage where the volume of imports was small, because we could provide for our needs for all commodities. But then, decreasing prices hurt farmers and forced them to cease farming, because the selling prices could not compensate their costs. They were in a losing situation,” he said.

“Importing is like a magical short-term panacea, but like all medicines, it can mislead, it has effects,” Winarno said. “In the future, the country’s dependence on other countries for providing our food staples will endanger the continuity of this nation.”

Winarno also warned that if Indonesia maintained its dependence on importing food from other countries, the nation would be jeopardized if those countries experience difficulties in food production due, for instance, to climate change. He gave the example of the public reacting in fury when they could not buy tempe because soybean imports from the United States were disrupted in 2012.

Sources of increasing imports

Adil Basuki Ahza, a senior scientist at Southeast Asia Food and Agriculture Science and Technology Center (Seafast Center) at the Bogor Institute of Agriculture, said increases in imports were caused by the failure of the government to fulfill rising food demand.

He said the failure was mainly caused by the lack of access to markets for farmers because of poor transportation and other infrastructure.

“Transportation is the key issue,” Adil said.

Besides infrastructure he said other commodities, such as salt, were affected by weather and climate change, causing production levels to be unstable.

Meanwhile, he claimed soybeans, garlic and grain are subtropical commodities not maximally suited to being produced in Indonesia, adding that lower production levels have been influenced by soil fertility, climatic conditions, including rainfall, as well as outbreaks of pests and diseases.

“These things still remain a threat to quantity and quality of production and productivity of agricultural systems,” he said.

Adil further pointed out that Indonesia’s farmers had limited technology to cope with changes in climate and decreasing soil fertility.

Winarno, meanwhile, said local agricultural products were less competitive than imported products.

“The government should have been protecting the farmers. They cannot let imported products eat local production from the inside out,” he said. “Japan imports heavily every year but they don’t have a problem because the government protects the farmers.”

In addition, Winarno emphasized that local products are less interesting in color and packaging, prompting consumers to favor import goods.

In a speech last month at a forum sponsored by Nestle Indonesia, Deputy Agriculture Minister Rusman Heriawan said Indonesia was not efficient with its land resources.

He said the land-to-people ratio for food crops was the lowest in the region; for every person in Indonesia there are 558 square meters of crops, compared to almost 1,000 for Vietnam, 1,200 for India and 5,000 for Thailand.

Bustanul Arifin, an agricultural economist at the Institute for Development of Economy and Finance, said that increasing imports have also been driven by profit-seeking importers and officials. He said these parties continued to push for more imports.

Protecting farmers

Adil said allowing cheaper imported goods into the country had two main consequences: First, pain for farmers and second, cheaper products for the population at large.

However, he said, “in the long term greater imports will drain the nation’s foreign exchange. If the government fails to control imports, the local farmers will stop producing food, and move to other professions to survive.”

“The farmers should be protected and be educated so they can compete smartly and responsively,” he said.

Despite hosting the recent meeting of Doha round World Trade Organization talks in Bali, the Indonesian government failed to support fellow developing nation India’s push for the right to subsidize up to 10 percent of certain food staples in order to support their domestic farmers and achieve food security.

India was pushing for a permanent right to support domestic agriculture under the agreement, rather than the brief four-year window being offered as a compromise by the United States and others.

Winarno agreed that increasing imports had negatively affected Indonesia’s trade balance.

“The government should do something. They have to protect the farmers. They can start with introducing non-tariff barrier policies by campaigning against imported fruits. For example, they could say that imported vegetables are less nutritious,” he said.

Prabowo Subianto, presidential candidate from the Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra) and chairman of the Indonesian Farmers Association (HKTI), said it was time to level up the Indonesian agriculture sector in order to boost economic growth.

Prabowo also said that in order to do that the government needs to make policy changes and provide fair rights for farmers across Indonesia.

“Agriculture is not only an economic matter, but related to the survival of the nation,” he said.

Agriculture technology

Prabowo said it was time for Indonesia to adopt advanced agricultural technology to increase the productivity of the land.

The former special forces chief claimed that Indonesia could develop its agricultural sector as long as nation’s wealth was not pocketed by corrupt governmental officials.

“We can get the best sophisticated technology ever, if we have money, but how [can we do that] if our wealth is being stolen by irresponsible parties?” he said.

Bustanul agreed that it’s time for the government to provide technology to increase yields and the quality of seeds and animals, as well as pest and disease control. “To implement all of these, we need education, training and holistic counseling to the farmers,” he said.



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Fast-Breeding Insect Is Devastating Java’s Rice — Thanks to Pesticides

Java could lose up to six million tons of rice in 2014, unless something is done immediately to regulate and reduce pesticide use.Brown planthopper populations have exploded due to the overuse of insecticides that destroy the planthopper’s natural enemies. This is a serious threat to Java’s rice production for 2014.
On Jan. 13, the Department of Plant Protection at the prestigious Bogor Agricultural University (IPB) issued a press release to call attention to this threat, which was identified by intensive field research in Java’s 2013 cropping season — a litany of Java’s main rice-producing areas particularly in East and Central Java were affected.
The brown planthopper, Nilaparvata lugens Stal, is a miniscule, fast-breeding insect that lodges in the stalks of rice plants. It feeds directly on the rice plant and in large numbers is capable of sucking the life out of extended fields of rice, causing what is called “hopperburn.” The brown planthopper is also a carrier of two destructive rice viruses: ragged stunt virus and grassy stunt virus, either of which can be as devastating to a rice crop as the brown planthopper directly feeding on it.With the onset of the rainy season, planthopper populations are forecast to explode in number, spread and become even more devastating.
Brown planthoppers are exceedingly difficult to predict and control as populations increase. It can produce both fully winged forms and partially winged forms. The partially winged forms are enormous breeders, each producing up to 350 eggs in roughly two weeks. Fully winged forms, though they produce fewer eggs, are exceptionally mobile and can migrate considerable distances. This produces a potent combination of local super breeders and equally remarkable migrants. Still, scientists have identified nearly 100 natural enemies that prey on the brown planthopper. These natural enemies range from hunter spiders that are asily observed to the tiniest of parasitoids that effectively prey on brown planthopper populations. But they, rather than the planthopper, are especially vulnerable to a great variety of general and systemic pesticides.
Indonesia has suffered a number of increasingly serious outbreaks of brown planthopper since the uptake of new rice technologies in 1967. Its first serious infestation occurred during the 1974-75 planting season, followed by a succession of further outbreaks culminating in a particularly severe outbreak in 1985-86.
In response, President Soeharto issued a presidential order that banned 57 organophosphate pesticides used at the time. For a period of some 20 years thereafter Indonesia enjoyed substantially reduced pesticide use and a steady uninterrupted increase in its rice production — with only limited and localized outbreaks of the brown planthopper.
But in 2002, a time of reformation, pesticide policies were changed and the country was opened up to a flood of pesticides, many originating in China. As pesticide use increased, the brown planthopper returned with a vengeance. A build-up of brown planthopper populations that began in 2009 led to the loss of more than 1.96 million tons of rice across Java in 2011. Java is now facing an even more intensive and widespread build-up, which is the reason for the urgent press release by the Department of Plant Protection at IPB.
The press release summarizes field evidence that shows a direct correlation between the number of pesticide applications and the damage to rice fields caused by the brown planthopper in infected areas. The more farmers spray, reducing natural predators, the greater the extent of “hopperburn.”
During the New Order, pesticides for rice were limited to a few chemical formulations, mainly organophosphates. Now the situation is vastly different. Dozens of chemical formulations are available to farmers, including varieties of neuro-active insecticides or neonicotinoids, numerous synthetic pyrethroids and even a range of organophosphates that are technically prohibited for rice. These different chemical formulations are sold under thousands of catchy brand names and actively promoted by suppliers’ agents. Many farmers mix a cocktail of different pesticides and some spray their field up to nine times in a single season.
Major rice producers like Vietnam have forbidden many pesticides, reduced the use of others and introduced biological methods to encourage the increase of the brown planthopper’s natural predators. But Indonesia has seen only an increase in the use of pesticides on rice.
So, another bold presidential order is needed to regulate pesticide
James J. Fox is professor emeritus in the Resource Management in Asia-Pacific Program, Crawford School of Public Policy, the Australian National University.
An article from the Jakarta Globe




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