Colleague takes over Justika's unfinished business

By Sylvia Gratia M. Nirang

Analysts have said that rebuilding the economy should include much more attention to agriculture. Newly appointed Minister of Agriculture Soleh Solahuddin is now faced with this challenge. The woman appointed for the job in the seventh development cabinet, Justika Sjarifudin Baharsjah, now the Minister of Social Affairs, earlier set the priorities which she considered crucial. One of them was to bring self-sufficiency to the now costly source of nutrition we took for granted -- soybeans.

JAKARTA (JP): Justika Sjarifudin Baharsjah's inclusion in the previous cabinet lineup heralded two new phenomena. First, she was the first woman to fill a ministerial post by replacing her own husband. Second, she was the first woman appointed as a portfolio minister.

She was assigned to revitalize the agriculture sector, which carries the burden of lifting the country out of its current economic crisis.

The plunging value of the rupiah's value has forced the government to rethink its agricultural strategy of relying on imports to meet the country's ever-growing consumption of rice, soybeans, corn and other commodities.

The task was entrusted to Justika, an agriculture professor from the Bogor Institute of Agriculture. She has been replaced by Soleh Solahuddin, the institute's rector.

Born in Cianjur, West Java, on May 7, 1937, she graduated from the University of Indonesia's School of Agriculture (which has been the Bogor Institute of Agriculture since 1963) in 1962. She married Sjarifudin Baharsjah, her senior at the university, the following year. They have two daughters.

She received a master's degree from the University of Kentucky in 1964 and later returned to earn her doctorate at the Bogor Institute of Agriculture.

A grandmother of two, Justika still teaches at several universities and is also chairwoman of Indonesian Agronomists Association (PERAGI).

The day she was appointed to the cabinet, she vowed to boost the country's production of several important commodities including rice, corn and soybeans to cut back on imports.

Indonesia, known for its rich natural resources, ironically has to import at least 1.2 million tons of sugar, 1.3 million tons of corn and 700,000 tons of soybeans annually.

Critics

Last year's drought also forced the country to import around one million tons of rice.

Besides those commodities, Indonesia also imports meat, milk and milk products, fruit and other produce to meet local demand.

For soybeans alone, local production reached 1.49 million metric tons last year, but consumption is now a staggering 2.3 million tons.

The economic crisis led to the disappearance of once popular food items which use soybeans -- particularly tempeh and tofu -- from dinner tables.

The government set aside a huge subsidy to import food.

It was heartening when Justika indicated that making Indonesia self-sufficient in soybeans by the year 2000 was one of the ministry's top priorities.

She said the target could be achieved by using about 500,000 hectares of idle land across the country to plant good-quality soybeans.

Her optimism invited criticism from agriculture analysts who said it would be very difficult to meet the target, considering unfavorable weather and climate and a decline in the amount of productive land.

A noted analyst said he considered a 12-month to 24-month turnaround too ambitious and probably too costly as farmers had inadequate knowledge of how to increase their yields.

"It is more reasonable to aim for soybean self-sufficiency in four to five years with intensive efforts, or eight years if we take it slowly," another analyst said.

But Justika seemed quite optimistic.

"Self-sufficiency in soybeans will be possible after 2000. We will continue trying to boost our production," she insisted.

The new minister was one who was not as optimistic -- Soleh had said that such ambitions needed to be supported by progress in the necessary technology to improve yield.

Many of Justika's aides said she was overshadowed by her husband all this time before her own ministerial appointment. She was the real minister of agriculture behind Sjarifudin, they said.

One official said most of Sjarifudin's moves during his five- years tenure stemmed from Justika's ideas.

"She is more clever, more intelligent, more ambitious and more courageous than her husband," one of her aides said.

But Justika denied the claims, saying modestly that she just accompanied her husband as his wife and also as an agriculture expert.

"Bapak (Sjarifudin) knows all about agricultural problems. I just helped him by sharing my ideas. Besides, he is an agriculture socioeconomist and I am an agronomist. He knows about economics more than I do, and maybe I know a little bit more than him about agriculture and farming techniques," she told The Jakarta Post.

When asked what hints he had given his wife for taking over the ministry, Sjarifudin had said, "Ibu (Justika) is not a follower. She is a leader. She will do whatever she wants to do. She doesn't need anybody to tell her what she has to do."

Five days after her installation, she began her job by cooperating with the country's Armed Forces in the deployment of military personnel for various agricultural activities.

Under the program, military personnel, equipped with tractors and other modern equipment, help farmers grow crops. Idle land outside of Java is being targeted during the routine Armed Forces civic mission in rural areas across the country.

Justika also urged the central bank to lower lending rates charged on farming activities to encourage businesspeople to invest in the agribusiness sector.

"Lending rates for agribusiness should be lower than those for other sectors because it is a resource-based business and people cannot make a profit in a short-period."

She said the high-lending rates had encouraged farmers to cease farming, given that around 30,000 hectares of agricultural land was converted for nonfarming purposes every year.

For many, the relocation of the Directorate General of Plantations from the auspices of the Ministry of Agriculture to the forestry ministry had made the ministry far less "attractive". The plantation sector was considered the ministry's "cash cow" all these years.

But Justika welcomed the switch, saying that it would make it easier for the ministry to focus on its efforts to revitalize the agriculture sector.

Although many people had applauded her appointment and said that she was the best person for the position, she insisted there were many agriculture experts who were more suitable for the job.

"It never crossed my mind that I would replace Bapak in that position," she said. "But I'm glad that I was given something I've been involved in for over 35 years."

Now, she has to learn the ropes of being minister of social services. Soleh, who takes over her position, was one of Justika's colleagues at IPB with whom she had several consultations during her barely two months in office.

He now assumes the responsibility of continuing what Justika started in doing the utmost to prevent another food supply crisis.