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)