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refer to an article titled '€œRice output soars, Jokowi'€™s policy successful: BPS,'€ (The Jakarta Post, July 1).

Throughout its history, the Soviet Union strived to achieve food self-sufficiency, but despite impressive growth, supply remained disappointing and a cause of deep concern. In the Soviet Union before the World War II, as in Imperial Russia, the level of grain production was of the most crucial economic magnitude.

In the second half of the 20th century, when the rest of the world was enjoying ample food supplies and industrial countries were even burdened by surpluses, in the Soviet Union the food problem was, economically and politically, the central issue of the whole five-year plan.

The Soviet regime, particularly in Joseph Stalin'€™s time, reacted with coercion to the inability of the farm sector to supply the growing urban population with adequate amounts of food. Farm products were forcibly procured and, under the stress, miracle cures were embraced: Collectivization, economies of scale, Lysenko'€™s biology (a pseudoscience) and even an attempt to change the climate.

Back in Indonesia, in 2015 the country is still experimenting with the Soviet-influenced Trisakti Principle, the three principles of political sovereignty, economic independence and sociocultural independence.

Removing subsidies (some) in fuel and plugging them all into rice farming '€” the end product is going to be inferior-grade rice at a hugely inflated price (more than twice the international market price). Another huge burden, albeit a rather popular one, on the government budget; one that is likely to remain a permanent feature for many years and many administrations to come.

Abu-Abu
Jakarta