Indonesia faces serious challenges in agriculture

Indonesia faces serious challenges in agriculture

JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Agriculture Sjarifudin Baharsjah
warned that the agricultural sector will face serious challenges
which must be dealt with as the country heads towards economic
globalization and free trade.

"The problems include the widening gaps between the growth in
agriculture and other sectors, the widening deficit of the
balance of payments in the overseas trade of food, the increasing
number of small-scale farmers, environmental degradation, the
declining of most commodity prices and the slow realization of
agricultural land expansion," he said during the 13th national
congress of the Institute of Indonesian Engineers on Monday
night.

"These problems need our serious attention...because Indonesia
is still an agrarian country after all," said the minister, who
is a trained engineer. He did not, however, cite any figures to
support his remarks.

Official statistics have projected that while the country's
economy is to grow by 6.6 percent per annum in the coming five
years, the agricultural sector is expected to grow a mere 2.4
percent every year.

Data from the Ministry of Agriculture reveals that in 1993 the
agricultural sector, which contributed only about 18.5 percent to
the gross domestic product, must support about 51.1 percent of
the country's total families.

Small

Recent reports show that the number of small-scale farmers
(defined as those who own less than 0.5 hectares of land) has
escalated to about 12 million at present from 9.5 million last
year.

This also means that out of all farmers surveyed by the
government, about 51.6 percent are classified as being small-
scale this year. The figure was only 50.9 percent last year.

Sjarifudin had conceded early this year that besides declining
incomes for farmers, there is also a rise in the number of
landless farmers, especially for those living in Java.

Arable land owned by Javanese farmers dropped by 16.4 percent
to 4.6 million hectares in 1993 from the year before, the
minister said in February.

Sjarifudin also said Monday that in order to meet these
challenges the country must step up investments in agriculture to
improve the sector's infrastructure, human resources and
institutional development. (hdj)