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Why importing rice is still considered a political sin
The government should accept the blunt reality that it is nearly impossible to maintain rice self-reliance all the time for such a huge population living across the world’s largest archipelago.
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The government should have realized that for over five decades, the availability, accessibility and price stability of rice has always been politically charged and sensitive. (JP/P.J.Leo)
T
he government should bear the primary blame for the public uproar and noisy spat involving senior ministers, politicians and farmers’ associations over its plan to import 1 million tons of rice to strengthen national food reserves.
The government should have realized that for over five decades, the availability, accessibility and price stability of rice has always been politically charged and sensitive. The import plan would not have caused such a high controversy if the policy had been well communicated to the public.
What the government plans to do is simply rational, given the vital role of rice as the main staple for the majority of the country’s 270 million people. It wants to secure the availability of rice imports whenever necessary in case of emergency because there are only two major rice exporters in Asia: Thailand and Vietnam.
The government plans to sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) later this month to buy up to 1 million tons of rice a year for four years from Thailand under a government-to-government (G2G) deal. But the import deal is tied to two conditions: the levels of production in both countries and the global rice price.
According to Thai Commerce Minister Jurin Laksanawisit, as quoted by the Bangkok Post, both governments had a similar agreement from 2012 to 2016, but Indonesia imported only 925,000 tons during that period.
For the past five years, however, no such import agreement has been in effect because the Indonesian government instated a rice self-sufficiency policy. But unfavorable weather and natural disasters forced Indonesia to import 89,406 tons last year, up 46 percent from 2019, according to Jurin.
Read also: Rice import plan draws backlash
