Hardship forces many to reduce food consumption

By Ida Indawati Khouw

JAKARTA (JP): Hardship incurred during the prolonged economic crisis has forced many residents of the Greater Jakarta area, especially those living in underdeveloped subdistricts, to reduce their daily food intake.

People caught between the pincers of falling income and rising prices have been left with no choice but to eat less in order to make what little money have last just that bit longer.

"I used to use four liters (3.6 kilograms) of rice every day but now I only use three liters. I have to feed my family with less now," Toipah, a housewife and mother of six who lives in Kamal subdistrict, West Jakarta, said on Saturday.

"I think it's one way which we can cope with hard times," said Toipah, who works as a scavenger with her husband Supardi.

Toipah said that her family had been forced to sell many of their valuable belongings, including a refrigerator, sewing machine and items of furniture, to get money to buy rice.

She explained that she saved up for and bought all her valuable belongings one by one when she ran a food stall on the bank of the nearby Tegal Alur river.

Her food stall was demolished about four months ago by the mayoralty as part of a river normalization project.

"What else can we do? My children still need food and have to be educated too," Supardi said.

"We cannot even afford to pay for my eldest son's education. He was forced to drop out of a Teacher Training Institute two months ago, even though he was in his sixth semester," he said. "It was just too expensive."

Supardi said that he and his wife then became scavengers. They supply used items to a recycling factory where another of their sons works.

"I haven't the heart to ask my children to reduce the quantity of food they eat, but we have no choice."

Supardi said that their current income of about Rp 15,000 (US$1.36) per day was far from enough to support his family's daily needs.

Seeking help

Sometimes the family has to ask for food from their relatives, he added.

"One of my uncles living around here owns a small plot of land planted with vegetables, so if I have no money I ask him to give me vegetables for our meal," Supardi said while sifting through sacks of used items with his wife outside their house.

"I don't know what will happen in the future if things go on like this," he sighed.

Jaka and his wife Atiah, who lived in a slum in Dadap, Tangerang, told the same story. The couple wash plastic waste in the Cimening river in front of their hut before it gets recycled.

"Our combined incomes are only Rp 15,000 a day. That is certainly not enough to buy food for the whole family," Atiah said.

Jaka used to earn Rp 30,000 from his job at a bamboo factory before he lost it in the aftermath of the rioting which hit the country in May. His wife explained that this was enough to feed the family and meet their other daily needs.

Since the price of rice jumped to over Rp 3,000 a kilogram, Atiah has tried to cut the family's rice consumption from three liters a day down to two. "Life is getting increasingly difficult."

"My eldest son, who just graduated from elementary school, and my second son, who was in his fifth grade, can no longer go to school. They have had to become parking attendants."

The extra income earned by the two working children has helped the family a lot, she added.

"Just filling our stomachs is hard now, let alone thinking about other needs like education," the 32-year-old woman said.

Jaka, 37, said that to make the money go further, his family sometimes bought cheaper food like cassava and sweet potatoes.

"But the price of cassava and sweet potatoes have also increased and are now about Rp 1,000 per kilogram," he said.

Sajim, a stall owner in the Kamal area, lamented a 50 percent drop in her income from its former level of Rp 25,000 since the price of basic foodstuffs began to rise sharply.

"Previously people used to buy rice in big amounts, but now they only buy enough to last for a day," she said.

Like her neighbors, she too said that she had reduced her daily food intake. "I used to have a meal three times a day, but now I only eat twice, sometimes even just the once."