Give concrete assistance to farmers and fishermen

Give concrete assistance to farmers and fishermen

When addressing a ceremony marking the awarding of the 2001 Food Resilience Citation in Jakarta last Friday, President Megawati Soekarnoputri instructed her ministers, particularly the agricultural and marine and fishery ministers, and other related officials to immediately solve basic problems faced by farmers, fishpond owners, cattle breeders and fishermen.

The instruction is noble, as farmers and fishermen have always been marginalized in the country's development. Farmers have even been victimized by a national food policy that is weighted in favor of urban interests.

To be effective, this instruction must also form part of the government's attitude. It must be everybody's obligation to translate the instruction into reality and Megawati herself must personally monitor its implementation.

Unfortunately, an instruction alone plus sympathy for the unfavorable fate of farmers and fishermen alone will not be sufficient for any improvement in the lot of farmers and fishermen. There are some other necessary conditions to meet.

First of all, Megawati must have a clear vision about how to empower farmers and fishermen. This empowerment effort must then be included in the main agenda of our national economic development. In this respect, Megawati should have, first of all, instructed her coordinating minister for the economy to formulate a national economic development framework in which the empowerment of farmers and fishermen would take a central position without, of course, ignoring economic development efforts based on the global market.

Then, of no less importance will be the finalization of regional autonomy arrangements, because in improving the lot of farmers and fishermen it is the regencies that must play the biggest role. The ideal scenario would be for the regencies to know exactly what they must do in this respect and the central government, in this case the technically relevant ministries, would focus themselves better on improving the capacity of regencies to the level necessary for the implementation of their jobs.

It would be a good idea, in this holy month of Ramadhan, for Megawati and her economic team to sit down together to discuss thoroughly the strategy of how to empower farmers and fishermen.

-- Republika, Jakarta