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Reviving local foods, achieving sustainable food system
More than a third of the households surveyed have reduced their food intake due to financial constraints, putting families in danger of malnutrition.
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A farmer tends to a farm as Mount Sinabung spews ash into the sky, as seen from Karo, North Sumatra on March 2, 2021. (Agence France Presse/Bahari Tarigan)
M
ost Indonesians tend to consume and rely on homogenous foods, or on a single staple food. This tendency has had implications for the government’s food policy decisions. For example, the national government imported 41,000 tons of rice in July 2021. Last year, the Jakarta provincial administration imported 130,000 tons of sugar.
In Papua, it is typical for the local administration to worry about the insufficiency of local rice production as fewer than 20 percent of Papuans consume sago and tubers; which are traditionally the local source of carbohydrates in the region.
Meanwhile, the COVID-19 pandemic has placed a spotlight on the fragility of Indonesia’s food and land-use systems. While the government has implemented different policies over time in different areas, from central to provincial levels, with emergency public activity restrictions, the widely disrupted supply chains have had a deleterious impact on food supply, markets and livelihoods.
Worldwide, 2020 data from United Nations Development Program projected that 780 million people would suffer from hunger in the next one year, a marked increase from the current 690 million. The pandemic is also expected to have a negative impact on children, with stunting and wasting cases expected to be in the millions in the next two years, effectively wiping out the previous 10 years of global progress in reducing malnutrition.
The economic ramifications of the pandemic are felt across Indonesia in the form of loss of incomes. As a result, a 2020 online survey conducted by J-PAL and partners found that more than a third of the households surveyed had reduced their food intake due to financial constraints, putting families in danger of malnutrition. In light of these projections, it is prudent to ask whether the impact of the pandemic could have been less severe, if people consumed more local foods.
Indonesia has demonstrated a strong commitment to shifting to a more diverse and sustainable, healthier diet. This is mandated in the 2012 Food Law and the country’s efforts to realize the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly Goal Two on ending hunger, achieving food security, improving nutrition and promoting sustainable agriculture.
Another commitment to strengthen the implementation of the Food Law has been included in the 2020- 2024 National Medium-Term Development Plan (RPJMN), which outlines the strategies for achieving an ideal and balanced dietary pattern, especially to increase the consumption of more nutritious foods and championing local food products.
