Food aid vs local production: Who will feed Aceh?

Indra Lubis and Isabelle Delforge, Jakarta

In the province of Aceh, the majority of the population makes its living from agribusiness or fishing. The 42,000 families depending on small-scale fisheries have been terribly devastated by the tsunami. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimated that two thirds of the fish in fisheries in the provincial capital Banda Aceh have been killed and that 70 percent of the small-scale fishing fleet has been destroyed.

On the other hand, the agriculture sector seems to have been far less affected. On the east coast, one can see very few rice fields destroyed. The Indonesian Farmers Federation (FSPI) reports that the damage is much bigger on the west coast, but that a large part of the rice fields in the province was spared by the tidal wave.

Nevertheless, FAO assessed that 40,000 hectares of irrigated rice fields have been affected and many of the irrigation canals have been destroyed by the earthquake. The wave also spread waste over the land and increased soil salinity, although the long-term effects are unknown.

Prior to the tsunami, the province of Aceh produced enough rice to feed a population of four million people. In 2004, Acehnese farmers produced 871,493 metric tons of rice, while only 564,219 tons were consumed locally. The surplus was sold to other provinces.

M. Amru, vice-president of Permata, the Farmers Association of Aceh, said that small producers were already facing very difficult living conditions before the tsunami, in particular due to the low prices they were receiving for their agricultural products. Moreover, he estimated that 30 percent of the Acehnese farmers do not have access to land, while some huge plantations of palm oil are operating in the area.

Many farmers harvested their rice in February and March, in spite of the tsunami and tried to sell their production. However, the economic survival of the agricultural sector is now threatened by the relief operations. Tonnes of food aid are being distributed to the survivors. The World Food Programme (WFP) estimates that 790,000 people in Indonesia need to be fed in the refugee camps or in private houses.

Several local organizations fear that the massive arrival of free food in Aceh will trigger a price collapse, making it even more difficult for the local economy to recover completely and possibly threatening the agricultural capacity that has survived the disaster.

Their concerns are justified. In Somalia in December 1992, for example, food aid poured into the country, despite the fact that the worst of the crisis was already over and there was a good local harvest. The imported food drove down the prices received by local Somali farmers by 75 percent, forcing many of them to abandon their land and join the queues for imported food handouts.

Some farmers complained that relief agencies would not buy their food because the U.S. government only provided them with funds to buy food from U.S. companies.

Today, Indonesia has enough rice to face the crisis. According to official statistics, the country produced 44.3 million tonnes of rice in 2004 while around 31 million tonnes where needed to feed the whole population. There was a large stock of 6.3 million tonnes of rice when the tidal wave hit the country. In 2004, the government imposed a ban on rice imports, as the country was able to fulfill its own needs.

Some rice stocks are available, even in the disaster area. Anton Wuryanto, chairman of State Logistics Agency (Bulog) crisis center said that the two store rooms in Meulaboh, on the ravaged west coast, had not been destroyed and still contain 817 tonnes of rice.

The United Nations agencies in charge of the relief operation in Aceh have officially reaffirmed their goal to buy food locally. However, the World Food Programme is trying hard to import rice in Indonesia.

Bambang Prasetyo, the operation director of Bulog in Jakarta told the press that the WFP diverted a boat going from Japan to Bangladesh with a load of 12,500 tons of rice for the relief operation in Indonesia. The spokesperson of the WFP in Aceh mentioned that this rice was coming from the U.S., the largest donor of the UN agency.

Large quantities of rice arrived in Indonesia without any import permit, and the authorities did not allow the distribution. The WFP asked the Ministry of Agriculture a permit to import 24,821 tons of rice that had already arrived in three Indonesian ports. The ministry was reportedly reluctant to give its approval.

A meeting of the rice working group of the Ministry of Agriculture rejected the demand on Jan. 14 on the ground that there was no need to lift the ban in the current situation.

Indonesia has just regained rice self-sufficiency after several years of unprecedented import bills and in the World Trade Organization (WTO) it strongly defends its domestic agricultural production. Indonesian farmers do not want the world donors to enter the market through the back door of food aid.

Indra Lubis is International Operative Secretariat of Via Campesina (International Peasant Movement) in Jakarta and Isabelle Delforge is a freelance researcher and journalist. They traveled to Aceh shortly after the tsunami.