Farmers shun sugarcane project

Farmers shun sugarcane project

JAKARTA (JP): Farmers mostly lack interest in taking part in
the government-sponsored sugarcane intensification program due to
unfavorable prices of sugarcane.

Mubyarto, an assistant of the minister for development
planning, said last week that many sugarcane farmers rented their
land to local entrepreneurs instead of taking part in the
project.

"As a consequence, around 80 percent of the participants of
the sugarcane project are businesspeople or rich farmers in the
area," he told a national congress of the association of agro-
economists.

The government introduced the project in 1975 to help small-
scale farmers improve the quality and efficiency of their
sugarcane plantations and offered special incentives, technical
assistance and subsidized loans. But most of the farmers could
not benefit from the facilities due to their poor access to the
banking system.

The farm areas involved in the project are mostly located near
sugarcane plantation companies in East and Central Java, where
the irrigation systems have specially been designed for sugarcane
plantations.

The farmers in the areas, however, are forced to rent their
land to the local entrepreneurs not only due to the unfavorable
prices of sugarcane but also because of their inability to grow
other commodities.

The farmers are, under the program, required to sell their
sugarcane to nearby state-owned plantations, which procure the
commodity at prices set by the government.

"The project has benefited only rich farmers and local
entrepreneurs," he said. Those businessmen have received many
gains from the project despite the low prices, not only because
of the larger scale of their farms but also their ability to
raise subsidized loans.

Mubyarto said that the failure of the project indicated the
inequity in the country's farming development.(hen)