Farmers demand land reform, protection from free market

Farmers demand land reform, protection from free market

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Thousands of farmers across the country marked National Farmers'
Day on Tuesday with protests demanding comprehensive land reform
and protection from the relentless onslaught of the free market.

But an agricultural analyst said that the country needed
agrarian reform and not land reform as demanded by farmers.

Bayu Krisnamurthi, the director of the Center for Development
Studies of Bogor Agriculture Institute (IPB), told The Jakarta
Post on Tuesday that through agrarian reform policies, the
government could protect farmland from exploitation other than
agriculture and farmers from communist politicking.

Some 2,000 sugar cane farmers from Java and Sumatra protested
in front of the Ministry of Finance in Jakarta on Tuesday,
demanding a subsidy of Rp 500 per kilogram for sugar produced by
local farmers.

Chairman of the Indonesian Sugar Cane Farmers Association
(APTRI) Arum Sabil said that the decision to raise import tariffs
for sugar in July had failed to boost domestic prices and he
called for a temporary ban on importing the commodity.

They also demanded that import tariffs for white sugar be
raised from the current Rp 700 per kilogram to Rp 1,250.

In Bandung, West Java, over 3,000 farmers from Karawang,
Indramayu, Tasikmalaya, Garut, Ciamis, Banjar, Cianjur and Subang
protested at the Gasibu field and urged the country's leaders and
politicians to focus their attention on farmers' welfare.

"The central government and regional administrations as well
as legislative members have not made a clear commitment to raise
farmers' welfare," Pasundan Farmers Association chairman
Agustiana said.

Agustiana said over 70 percent of West Java's population of 26
million is made up of either farmers or those who are socially
disadvantaged, but the government has paid little attention to
the agriculture sector as reflected in the shrinking agricultural
land.

"On average, farmers in West Java have 0.013 hectares of paddy
fields and earn a daily income of Rp 7,500," said Agustiana, who
called for national land reform.

In Yogyakarta, over 1,000 farmers and students staged a street
rally demanding land reform to bring about what they called the
land for the people.

They also condemned unjust practices in land-related matters,
including the issuance of building use certificates for public
land and the selling of public land.

In Palu, Central Sulawesi, over 1,000 farmers from across the
province marched to the local legislature, demanding land for
those less fortunate and an increase in the price of unhusked
rice as well as an end to discrimination against farmers.

In Medan, North Sumatra, hundreds of farmers protested in
front of the provincial legislature compound, calling for an end
to excessive land exploitation.

They also demanded that the government return land confiscated
from the people by state-owned PT Perkebunan Nusantara II.

"Many farmers lost their ancestral land and became poor in
their own village," the secretary-general of the North Sumatra
Agrarian Reform Committee, Sipa A. Munthe, said.

In Lampung, some 2,500 farmers protested at the Merah Enggah
field in Bandarlampung, demanding that the government settle land
disputes and protect farmers from the global market threat.

They also demanded that the subsidy for agricultural products
be maintained to boost the farmers' position in facing
globalization.

Bayu said farmers' protests reflected their desperate
situation and the weak legal status given to farmland.

He said that every year, between 80,000 hectares and 100,000
hectares of farmland in the country was converted for
nonagricultural use, such as for housing, industrial sites and
recreational places.

Bayu said that most farmland was not fully protected by law
since the farmers rarely held land certificates.

"Most farmers only base their land claims on girik (ancestral
rights), which can easily be defeated in a dispute by a land
certificate because a certificate is highly respected and upheld
in our national judicial system," he said.

He said that agrarian reform policies could help the farmers
gain benefits from the banking sector. Most banks in the country
prefer to give soft loans to manufacturing businesses or other
sectors other than the agriculture sector, since farming is
considered a less profitable venture.