26 May 2014
Indonesia lag behind from Singapore and the other
South-east Asian countries in term of food security rating for year 2014. The
rating was compiled by The Economist and it was made according to three
indicators such as: consumer’s purchasing power, food availability and the
quality and safety of the food. They recorded Indonesia has several weakness
such as in budget for agriculture research, corruption, and gross domestic
product.
Gustami Harahap, Lecturer of Agriculture Faculty in Medan Area University
(UMA), said that this fact is very disappointing as Indonesia is an agriculture
country that had huge natural resources. He said that Indonesia may face food
crisis as the food supply in this nation drops from time to time. “As our birth
rate is very high, it will automatically affect to food consumption rate.
People been moving from villages to the cities, poverty rate has increased, the
land that could be cultivated decreased. This is the biggest humanity problem in
Indonesia and in the world,” he said during the API (Planter Association
Indonesia) seminar on Saturday (24/5).
He believed that Indonesia’s rank was a reflection of
internal and external factor. Internal factor correlated with issues such as
land conversion, mobilization of work for the farmers and seasonal crops. “The
government is not strict enough to set agriculture priority areas, people’s
understanding on this issue is decreasing, pressures of life, farmers’ social
economy condition and government’s negligence,” he said.
As for external factors, he said that the situation
that Indonesia faced is also being affected by free market, revitalization of
agriculture and utilization of research and technology. In regarding to free
market, he said that although it is important for distribution of food, the
farmers may not be able to compete against the pressure of international
market. Besides that, he also said that free market and revitalization are
usually dominated by several people’s importance such as the companies and
government officials that only prioritized themselves.
“Import cases that involve politicians in this country
proved that there is something wrong. Trade system in this country is similar
to ‘moneylenders’. What is Bulog’s (Indonesian National Logistic Agency) role?
They should be the price controller. But now they were the cheap rice
distributors. I am confused, had their role changed?” he asked.
In regarding to the utilization of research and
technology, he said the availability of supportive equipment at laboratories in
Indonesian Universities is far from adequate. He questioned the Research and
Technology Institution’s (Litbang) role. Besides that he also questioned the
Ministry, Agencies of Agriculture and Plantation’s role that are not good
enough. “Government loves discourses, but the implementation is not as good,”
he said.
Agriculture Downstream
Gustami Harahap highlighted the importance of
agriculture downstream. He said that the government should support the farmers
to promote investors to invest in downstream industries. “If the government
wanted to increase revenue in real sectors, they should ease the regulations so
that the business world could develop. If they only prioritized income from
non-real sector such as tax, then poverty and unemployment rate will increase,”
he said.
Kasyful Mahalli, economy observer, had similar view to
Gustami Harahap. One issue that he wanted to highlight is: the government
should come up with master plan and to think about the future of the farmers
and the students in agriculture majors. “Students that graduated from
agriculture sectors now work at banking, capital market and other sectors. This
is because the government could not provide jobs for them. They were also
reluctant to become a farmer so they prefer to work in such sectors,” he said.
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