T

he first Millennium Development Goal (MDG) calls for the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger. Food security, or rights to food, is defined as access to sufficient and affordable food which can relate to a single household or to the global population.

Despite political commitments to reduce world hunger, the number of people lacking access to the "minimum dietary energy requirements" (2,000 kilocalories per day) has risen from 824 million in the baseline year (1990) to 963 million in 2008. A further 750 million are assessed to be at risk according to the OneWorld.net website, April 21, 2009.

In Indonesia over the past three years, there has been a price leap among foods and other agricultural products. As a result there has been a decrease in food security with devastating effects such as an increasing number of malnutrition cases, as well as an increase in maternal and infant mortality rates.

Unfortunately, until now, government policies have disadvantaged the agricultural sector and rural areas even though the largest portion of the population is employed there. This has been reflected in subsidy cuts and the import policy for agricultural products which have both impacted farmers' livelihoods and the development of the agricultural sector.

The number of poor people is growing. Most of these people are small scale farmers (petani gurem) with less than 0.25 ha of land, or agricultural-wage laborers. In accordance with the World Food Programme (WFP, 2005), poor and malnourished people in Indonesia will almost certainly not be able to escape poverty unless drastic changes are made to policies.

According to Amartya Sen, author of Poverty and Famines, the requirements of food security are not only based on food stocks but also food accessibility. In fact, the dangers of distribution inequity and economic growth have been recognized. As examples, income inequality is discussed by by Simon Kuznets and Gunnar Myrdal and they show that in fact the "trickle-down effect" rarely occurs.

Since the 1980s, many developing countries including Indonesia have applied controls on agriculture in an effort to maintain the affordability of agricultural products for growing urban populations. This phenomenon was observed in the 1990s with Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) policy of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as an absolute condition for financial aid and loans to developing countries.

It described the phenomenon as a macro-political problem which had led countries to withdraw funding from agricultural sectors and services and also the liberalization of policies dealing with pricing, markets and agricultural commodities. Under such conditions, in many countries, agriculture has become the worst affected macro-economic sector due to reductions of subsidies it has faced. The practice of SAP is the final part of rural development.

Based on the failures of rural development in Indonesia, it may be beneficial to examine the successes of South Korea, Thailand, Taiwan, Malaysia and China (since 1978), which have utilized agriculture as a means to drive growth in other sectors.

This strategy covers a few important areas; namely supporting small and medium family businesses, avoiding a subsidized credit system, developing infrastructure in rural areas, supporting technological developments and providing access to technology for farmers, as well as avoiding discrimination against the agriculture sector.

Through these policies there has been a leap in growth in agriculture sectors, increasing production and productivity, and decreasing poverty rates in the rural areas in those countries.

It is clear that a few improvements and modifications of policies are needed in Indonesia. First we need to introduce a price bias correction that presently relies too heavily on production regulation through market pricing. Making improvements to the agriculture sector and supporting innovations within it are actual needs.

Second, to renew the income bias policy which aims to provide wage improvements for farmers. This could be achieved through market mechanisms, or a basic subsistence stabilization policies and provision of assurance for farmers that they will not be evicted.

Third, amend male biased policies to improve the socio-economic status of women.

At the World Food Summit in Rome, 14 years ago, every member country (including Indonesia) was determined to reduce the Global Hunger Index from 840 million people to half of that figure by 2015. However, based on FAO data, in 2005 the total number of people living in hunger had remained relatively unchanged - still at 825 million.

While urbanization has occurred rapidly, between 60 and 70 percent of the Indonesian population still live in rural areas, and around half of these are small scale farmers who face food shortages.

Two thirds of small scale farmers are marginalized because they have infertile land, are isolated, have no assurance of their rights to land, or do not have access to credit.

Other factors they face include unreliable infrastructure and dependency on traders. And without ownership of land, around 30 percent of these farmers have been forced to work as agricultural-wage laborers, seasonal fishermen or forest industry workers.

Food security must be addressed by various groups. Changes that have occurred because of the commercialization of productive resources, water, seeds and the decline of prices for agricultural products and asymmetric liberalization of agricultural trades, have ironically made conditions more difficult both for those facing food shortages and for farmers who could alleviate this problem.