Food and agricultural issues have recently become one of the hottest topics worldwide. The energy and food crisis, which initially occurred at the beginning of 2008, demanded world attention concerning food shortage problems.
Even though the contribution of agriculture to Indonesia’s GDP is continually decreasing; agriculture plays a pivotal role in food production. At the national level, the agriculture sector should provide food for about 230 million people. in the last 40 years the population of Indonesia has increased remarkably, by about 100 million people.
The trend of food consumption, especially for rice-staple food, has not changed significantly. Indonesian is still one of the largest consumers of rice in the world. Per capita, the country’s consumption of rice is about 130-140 kilograms. As a result, Indonesian agriculture should provide a huge number of rice to the population.
Although Indonesia is the third-largest rice producer in the world, considering the huge population, its capability to produce enough food is still problematic. The central government has noted that in the last two years Indonesia could produce enough food especially rice, with a surplus.
Looking back at the experience of national food production, it is still hard to say whether our situation is safe. Indonesia has had the worst experience as the largest rice importer in the world. Indonesia has even imported rice from producer countries such as Vietnam, Myanmar and Thailand many times.
At the global level, food consumption has also dramatically increased. The huge demand for food from new emerging economies, mainly China and India has remarkably escalated that demand. China and India have populations over 1 billion people, so to some extent, their demand also threatens the global food supply.
The potency of food production capabilities and the huge demand for food, either from national or global consumers, has become not only a challenge, but also an opportunity for national agriculture. We have enough natural and human resources.
We have about 12 million hectares of wet land and 24 million hectares of dry land. From these resources, Indonesia definitely has an opportunity to produce enough food for the population. If we are serious about increasing food productivity, we have a big chance to export surpluses to the global food market.
However, food production is not an easy matter. Success will only be attained if national and regional policies give high and proper priorities to agricultural development. There is a lot of work to do regarding policies on agricultural development, with fundamental issues such as farmer’s access to main farming inputs such as land, seeds and water.
Landless and minor-scale farming has already become a common part of our farming. Land reform is one of the solutions. However, the policies on these matters are still unclear. Land reform itself is not likely to solve all farming problems, but facilitating rural industries will complement this strategy.
Certain farmers may move from farming to off-farming or non-farming in rural areas if the opportunities are offered. If the number of people involved in farming reduces substantially, the units of managed land by each farmer is expected to increase. This strategy will provide benefits and incentives for farmers to improve their productivity.
Farmers are also still facing difficulties in accessing high quality seeds. The high price of seeds caused by monopoly ownership has hampered this. Water access is also a very crucial issue for farmers. A lack of maintenance of irrigation facilities also occurs in many places. Appropriate research involving research institutes, universities and the mass production of reasonably priced seeds, is a likely solution. In this sense, seed provision is considered a public good.
Central and local governments need also invest appropriately in irrigation facilities. Efficient and effective irrigation system need to be implemented in relation to local conditions. Water shortage is one of the main problems of global climate change, so water should be managed and used wisely.
Policies on food prices in Indonesia are also still problematic for producers and farmers. Price policies almost continually provide benefits to consumers rather than producers. Policy directed toward the low price of food provides no incentives and benefits for farmers. Consequently, it is difficult to expect high food productivity under this system.
In the world, the practice of the old paradigm of low food prices, which are expected to boost national economic growth, have likely changed. High food prices are likely to benefit producers that have higher purchasing power and access to industrial goods. It will also stimulate industrial production. The cycle in sum may increase national economic growth.
The government can offer new schemes for net food consumers such as the urban and rural poor that are traditionally the beneficiaries of these policies. These can be implemented in the social safety net through cheap food distribution and other related policies.
In short, Indonesian agriculture still has huge potential to improve. Appropriate policies and measures should be carefully arranged and implemented.
We have more than enough natural and human resources to develop modern agriculture. The problem is how seriously, central and local governments and politicians will take agricultural issues.
The writer is a lecturer at School of Agriculture Gadjah Mada University, PhD Candidate at the University Tokyo and Chairman of the Indonesian Agriculture Science Association (IASA)-Japan.
