T

he Indonesian Sugarcane Farmers (APTRI) has complained over the cooperation between the Agriculture Ministry and the Indonesian Military (TNI), which has resulted in arrests of farmers concerning allegations of hoarding subsidized fertilizer.

According to the memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the two institutions, signed in January 2015 to help achieve self sufficiency by 2017, the TNI was tasked, among other things, with helping monitor the distribution of subsidized fertilizer.

In practice, however, soldiers from the military'€™s subdistrict command (Koramil) and district command (Kodim) levels have arrested sugarcane farmers for hoarding subsidized fertilizer.

'€œWe want an improvement in the policy,'€ APTRI chairman Soemitro Samadikoen said on the sidelines of the association'€™s national working meeting in Yogyakarta on Wednesday.

He expressed the concern that if nothing was done about the practice, reaching the planned self-sufficiency in sugar by 2017 would be fail. Indonesia presently imports 2.8 million tons of sugar annually.

APTRI deputy-secretary general M. Nur Khabsyin concurred, saying that such arrests would make farmers afraid of using subsidized fertilizer, so that they would not be able to produce good products and would instead suffer financial losses.

He said Indonesia was home to between 450,000 and 500,000 sugarcane farmers and 59 sugar factories.

Nur added that there had been misorientation among soldiers in conducting their field tasks. Instead of monitoring the distribution of subsidized fertilizer, they had instead monitored farmers using the fertilizer.

'€œFarmers keeping subsidized fertilizer at home were arrested and were accused of hoarding fertilizer,'€ said Nur.

He added that in each of the regencies where there was a sugar factory, farmers had been arrested by soldiers for subsidized fertilizer possession.

According to the regulation, a farmer can keep subsidized fertilizer for two hectares of sugarcane plantations at the maximum.

Agung Amrullah of APTRI PG Lestari Situbondo, East Java, said this had limited the yield that a farmer could obtain from planting sugarcane.

Agung said that to maximize revenue, farmers usually rented over two hectares of fields to plant sugarcane. Yet, in Gresik, East Java, a farmer was arrested for using subsidized fertilizer on over two hectares.

'€œThe regulation really makes farmers confused,'€ Agung said.

Farmer Taufik Hidayat from Central Java and Suwandi of Madiun, East Java, told similar stories. Both also urged the government to revise the policy.

'€œSoldiers have the task of holding guns, not arresting farmers,'€ Taufik said.

Region II retail marketing manager of fertilizer producer PT Petro Kimia Gresik, Rohmad, admitted that arrests had occurred.

'€œA distributor of ours was arrested. A kiosk owner with stock for three weeks was also arrested,'€ Rohmad said.

Agriculture Ministry fertilizer and pesticide director Muhrizal Sarwani asked APTRI to advise the ministry on the issue.

Spokesperson of the regional military command (Kodam) V Brawijaya in East Java, Lt. Col. Washington Simanjuntak, denied misconduct, saying that what the soldiers had done in the fields was according to their commander'€™s commands.