Europe's agriculture commissioner, who is currently on a state visit to Indonesia, suggests that smallholders must organize to increase productivity, add value and cut out the scourge of middlemen by taking a more prominent position in the agricultural supply chain.
he European Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development says that organization is the key to success for small-scale farmers, and has urged local smallholders to organize to deal with declining productivity in Indonesia’s agriculture sector.
Janusz Wojciechowski is on a visit to Indonesia and is scheduled to meet with the new government from Oct. 27 to 30 to discuss agriculture, share the European Union’s experience in governance and technology, as well as push for more open bilateral trade.
Speaking to The Jakarta Post on Thursday, Wojciechowski said smallholders in several European countries had organized well to thrive.
“The problem [is not] the scale of the farms, but the organization. And [on] this subject we can share our experience, how the farmers are organized. Small farmers, but well organized. This is the answer,” Wojciechowski said in an online interview.
An agricultural survey published by Statistics Indonesia (BPS) in December 2023 showed the number of petani gurem, or farmers that manage less than 0.5 hectares, had jumped by more than 2 million over the last decade.
The BPS classification of petani gurem, or subsistence farmers, ranks below smallholders according to landholding size.
The sharp increase in subsistence farmers has been deemed partly responsible for the slump in national productivity, as they are often pushed out of the sector due to their financially unstable farming model.
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