W

ith less than one year left for the government to achieve self-sufficiency by 2014, failure is already in sight. But, the government has decided to continue the program that was formulated in 2010.

The government has targeted to reach self-sufficiency in five commodities, namely rice, beef, soya beans, corn and sugar. By 2014, the country is expected to be able to meet 90 percent of domestic needs from local production.

The recent import of beef to supply the growing demand during the holy fasting month, however, signals failure.

The government has blamed this situation on declining land availability, rising demands and low productivity.

Agriculture Minister Suswono has even expressed his pessimism about the ambitious program. '€œRather than annulling the program and achieving nothing, we choose to go on and optimize anything we can before meeting the deadline next year,'€ Suswono recently told members of the House of Representatives'€™ Commission IV overseeing agriculture when asked about the slow progress of the program.

In another occasion, Suswono said he was not sure whether or not the government would continue the program, saying that he would wait for the next agricultural census from the Central Statistic Agency (BPS) late this year to see whether the target was feasible or not.

The government has recently authorized the additional import of 3,000 tons of frozen beef and 25,000 live cattle to cope with rising demand and to stabilize hiking prices during the Ramadhan fasting month and the Idul Fitri holiday.

It also plans to remove import quotas for beef and live cattle to stabilize domestic prices and curb inflation, despite previously insisting on import limits to spur local production. It curbed imports and reduced its import quota for live cattle by more than 30 percent last year and another 30 percent this year. In addition, it cut the beef import quota by almost 60 percent last year '€” only to import an additional 7,000 tons of beef in mid-year '€” and by 6 percent this year.

It has set a total live cattle import allocation of 267,000 for this year, with a beef import quota of 32,000 tons, 20 percent of which are prime cuts.

The price of beef doubled to Rp 80,000 (US$7.90) per kilogram during Idul Fitri last year due to the lack of supply, and the price has continued to rise to Rp 120,000 in this year'€™s fasting month, further showing the government'€™s miscalculation of local demand.

Producers are also pessimistic that the self-reliance in staple foods can actually be achieved by next year.

'€œBy authorizing more imports, the government has admitted that self-sufficiency in beef is unlikely. With the government trying to keep the price down, cow breeding is no longer interesting for farmers,'€ Indonesian Cow and Buffalo Breeders Association (PPSKI) chairman Teguh Boediyana said.

Beef is not the only commodity plagued with low productivity and rising demand.

Data from the Agriculture Ministry shows that Indonesia imported 780,000 tons of corn in the first quarter of this year, a 200 percent increase compared to the 260,000 tons imported during the same period last year.

The Indonesia Animal Feed Producers Association (GPMTI) has predicted that Indonesia, due to the growing demand for animal feed, would import 2.8 million tons of corn this year, up by 64.7 percent compared to last year'€™s imports of 1.7 million tons.

Data from BPS shows that consumption of grain increased by an average 8 percent each year between 2000 and 2012, while corn yields increased on average by only 6 percent and corn per planted hectare increased by only 1 percent per annum.

For sugar and soybean, having no additional hectares is the biggest obstacle in reaching the target.

The government has revised this year'€™s sugar production target, down 42.45 percent from the previous 4.9 million tons to 2.82 million tons. The target for the 2014 production has also been slashed by 45.61 percent from the previous 5.7 million tons to 3.1 million tons.

Suswono said several programs '€” including adding 350,000 hectares of sugarcane plantation and revitalization of old facilities '€” was not running as planned, making it impossible to reach the target.

Finding new land is not as easy as it seems, until now no additional hectares had been added to cultivate sugarcane, he admitted.

The same goes with soybeans, as the government has planned to add 500,000 hectares to achieve the target of producing 2.7 million tons to meet domestic supply, but up to now no new land has been acquired. The government has slashed nearly half of its 2012 soya bean production target from the previous 1.9 million tons to 1 million tons, and further cut its 2013 target from 2.25 million tons to 1.5 million tons.

University of Lampung agricultural economist Bustanul Arifin says that the self-sufficiency target had been far off target from the start. '€œWhat the government has to think through is food security, how everyone can have access to food whether through domestic production or through imports when necessary.'€