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Revitalizing nutrition and food security
Indonesia is currently experiencing the dual burden of dealing with malnutrition and over-nutrition or obesity.
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Indonesia is currently experiencing the dual burden of dealing with malnutrition and over-nutrition or obesity. (Shutterstock/Golubovy)
F
ood security issues in Indonesia are quite complex, not only because they have far-reaching effects on the individual, household, nation and world, but also because the issues range from food availability and accessibility to price stability.
At the global level, Indonesia ranks 69 among 113 countries in the Global Food Security Index (GFSI) published by the Economist Intelligence Unit in September 2017, far behind Singapore and the United States, which rank first and second respectively. Indonesia is even below its ASEAN peers such as Malaysia ( 41st ), Thailand ( 55th ) and Vietnam ( 64th ), mostly because food access in Indonesia is quite low.
The poverty level in Indonesia is quite high — the number of people under the poverty line in 2017 reached a total of 6.6 million (10.1 percent). This group of people is very vulnerable to food price changes and production declines due to climate change and extreme weather such as droughts, floods and natural disasters.
Increasing food prices, especially with rice as a staple food, has serious consequences on food security, particularly among the poor and those with limited access to healthcare facilities. Indonesia is currently experiencing the dual burden of dealing with malnutrition and over-nutrition or obesity, which affects 11 percent of the population, and the trend is increasing, posing new problems. Urban malnutrition is relatively lower than rural malnutrition. However, at the bottom 20 percent of the income group, malnutrition could reach about 50 percent.
