Nana Rukmana, The Jakarta Post, Cirebon, West Java | Mon, 04/20/2009 1:32 PM
Farmers, grouped under the Association of Indonesian People's Sugarcane Farmers, (APTRI) from the West Java branch are demanding a higher sugar production basic price (HPP), arguing the newly set one of Rp 5,350 (46 US cents) per kilogram falls below their expectations.
They therefore urge the government to reconsider and increase the price so the sugarcane farmers may benefit.
"We do hope the government will fulfill our demand and revise the HPP to Rp 5,600 per kilogram," chairman of the West Java APTRI Anwar Asmali said over the weekend.
The demand emerged following the issuance of Decree No. 560/2009 on the HPP by the trade minister on April 8, which increased the HPP from the previous Rp 5,000 to Rp 5,350 per kilogram. Ideally, according to Anwar, the price should increase by Rp 510 per kilogram, or 10 percent of the sugarcane sugar basic production cost of Rp 5,100 per kilogram.
That, he said, would motivate the farmers to keep producing sugarcane sugar and help the government meet national sugar self-sufficiency.
"The increase *of Rp 510 per kilogram* has taken into consideration the increase in production costs due to the hike in the price of staple foods," Anwar said.
Anwar expressed concern that if the HPP was not increased, farmers would prefer to plant other commodities they considered more profitable, which in turn would affect national sugar productivity.
"The low price of sugar will not attract farmers to plant sugarcanes," he said, expressing concern over the possible unemployment it could create, because tens of thousands of manual workers working in the agricultural sector could lose jobs if that was the case.
If sugar is no longer seen as a profitable commodity, he said, the sugarcane plantations would most likely turn into plantations of other commodities. "At this point, it would be agricultural manual workers who suffer the most," Anwar said.
In West Java alone, according to Anwar, there are some 30,000 manual workers working in sugarcane plantations, as to cultivate a hectare of sugarcane usually needs between two and three manual workers.
