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Hunger part of daily life for 22m Indonesians

Outside an asbestos-roofed shack in East Manggarai, East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), 62-year-old Valeria Panu eats a bowl of plain rice

Markus Makur, Jon Afrizal and Made Anthony Iswara (The Jakarta Post)
East Nusa Tenggara/Jambi/Bali
Wed, November 13, 2019

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Hunger part of daily life for 22m Indonesians

Outside an asbestos-roofed shack in East Manggarai, East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), 62-year-old Valeria Panu eats a bowl of plain rice.

“Three times a day I eat [only] rice. I eat corn, sweet potato or vegetables only during harvest seasons. Or fish if I’m fortunate enough to have enough money to buy it,” said Valeria, who survives on money from her children, aside from occasional cocoa harvest revenue that amounts to around Rp 1.25 million (US$88.87) per year.

Nearby, Tobias Akut, 65 years old, lives in a ramshackle bamboo house with an asbestos roof that looks ready to collapse in a mountainous plantation area of East Manggarai. Tobias, his wife and nine children sometimes get handouts of rice from neighbors and family members, otherwise they eat cassava or corn stockpiled from their previous year’s harvest.

“I collect firewood for sale, working on a plantation area owned by someone else. I take care of the land owned by someone in Ranakolong village,” said Tobias, explaining the ways he scrambles to make ends meet.

Thousands of kilometers away from Valeria and Tobias, in Kasang Pudak village, Muarojambi regency, Jambi, 8-year-old Amat, not his real name, was recently taken to Raden Mattaher Hospital in Jambi city, suffering from malnutrition.

At 9 kilograms, Amat’s weight is equivalent to an average healthy 1-year-old baby. His bones are clearly visible through his skin. Jambi Health Agency head Samsiran Halim said malnourished children usually also had other illnesses such as tuberculosis, cerebral palsy or congenital disorders such as Down’s syndrome and respiratory problems from birth.

Valeria, Tobias and Amat represent the 22 million people in Indonesia who endured hunger from 2016 to 2018 during President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s first term, according to a new report published by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), International Food Policy Research Institute and the National Planning Agency (Bappenas).

“A significant number of people are still engaged in traditional agriculture, trapped in low-paid and less productive activities. Many of them do not get enough food and their children are prone to stunting, keeping them in a vicious cycle for generations,” the October report reads.

As many as 25 million Indonesians are classified as poor, living on less than Rp 425,250 per person per month, according to Statistics Indonesia (BPS) data in March. That means they get by on $1 per day, well below the global poverty line benchmark of $1.90 per person per day.

Around 59 percent of children under 5 years old in Indonesia are not developing properly because of stunting, wasting or obesity, according to UNICEF report The State of the World’s Children 2019: East Asia and Pacific. The figure is the second-highest in the region.

Food availability also remains low as Indonesia ranks 65th among 113 countries in the 2018 Global Food Security Index published by the Economist Intelligence Unit.

To tackle the issue, the ADB report recommended an increased investment in agriculture to generate faster agricultural and economic growth, improve food security and enable households to engage in more productive sectors while earning greater income.

“The results show that Indonesia can virtually end hunger by 2030 and fully eradicate hunger by 2045 with a combination of higher investments in agricultural research and development, irrigation expansion and water use efficiency, and rural infrastructure including roads, electricity, and railways,” the report states.

Rough and ready: Tobias Akut, 65, repairs his makeshift house in Ranakolong village in East Manggarai regency, East Nusa Tenggara, on Nov. 8.(JP/Markus Makur)
Rough and ready: Tobias Akut, 65, repairs his makeshift house in Ranakolong village in East Manggarai regency, East Nusa Tenggara, on Nov. 8.(JP/Markus Makur)

The Agriculture Ministry, the key government institution in charge of invigorating the country’s food system, was quick to respond to the report, saying: “There’s no such thing as hunger.”

“Everyone gets food. Our food supply is sufficient. Certainly, there are regions prone to food insecurity and we are doing our best to eradicate this,” said the head of the ministry’s Food Security Agency, Agung Hendriadi, in a statement.

Agriculture Minister Syahrul Yasin Limpo signed last month an agreement with six other ministries to overhaul 88 regencies the ministry has identified as “prone to food insecurity”.

“We will try to fix [food security problems] in these 88 areas. I hope that all ministerial bodies and regional authorities can unite and focus [to solve the issue],” Syahrul recently told reporters, aiming to form a solid action plan before 2020.  

The Social Affairs Ministry and the State Logistics Agency (Bulog) have said that they aim to deliver their noncash food assistance program to around 15.6 million families in need this year across 295 regencies and cities in Indonesia.

The Health Ministry has also continued to strive to improve nutrition programs and prevent stunting through its so-called Specific Nutrition Intervention since 2011, targeting children during their first 1,000 days of life and their mothers as part of the global United Nations-initiated Scaling Up Nutrition movement.

Despite all the government’s efforts, Center for Indonesian Policy Studies (CIPS) researcher Galuh Octania argues that policies have failed to open up to a larger food market that would supply food to more people and keep down prices.

A 2019 CIPS study found that between April 2017 and April 2018 rice prices in Indonesia were on average Rp 5,109 higher than world market prices. If Indonesians were to pay world market prices, the population could have consumed up to 3.43 kg more rice each month during the same period, potentially reducing stunting levels through consumption pattern changes.

“Rice is a staple food for us so if we can’t even obtain rice [as a result of high prices], how are we going to fulfill the rest of our needs?” Galuh said.

Among other measures, the CIPS study also urged the government to remove limitations on maize imports that have hiked up costs for the poultry industry, which in turn leads to higher prices for chicken meat and eggs.

While the government and experts seek the best available options, NTT resident Valeria continues to survive on simple bowls of rice every day. “I pay quite high prices for food products in the village. Access to the nearby market is really difficult with severely damaged roads,” Valeria said.

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