Food aid vs local production: Who will feed Aceh?

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.