Indonesia to send agriculturalists to developing nations
PUNCAK, West Java (JP): An agreement signed here yesterday by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) will allow Indonesia to send its agriculturalists to other developing countries to help increase production of staple foods.
Visiting FAO Director General Jacques Diouf, who signed the agreement with Minister of Agriculture Sjarifudin Baharsjah, said that it is high time for other developing countries to learn the knowledge, expertise and experience of Indonesia, a former huge rice importer which has been successful in making itself self- sufficient in rice since 1984.
"It is my gratitude to the government and to the people of Indonesia for this technical cooperation," said the 56-year-old Senegalese.
Sjarifudin told reporters that the Rome-based FAO has decided to use Indonesian agriculturalists rather than Western ones on the grounds that the salaries of Indonesian experts are cheaper.
"Our experts are also more familiar to the daily problems of developing countries because of our position ourselves," he said.
Diouf praised President Soeharto, the on-going chairman of the Non-Aligned Movement, who had initiated and encouraged Indonesian agriculturalists to cooperate with their counterparts in other developing countries.
Streamlining
In a related development, Diouf told reporters that currently 800 million of 5.5 billion world population do not have adequate food.
He said that FAO, whose goals are enshrined in its motto Fiat Panis or Let There Be Bread, had estimated that in the year 2003 the world population would be nine billion, during which the food deficit matter would become more serious.
"We cannot do anything but increase our food production very seriously, starting right now," he said, adding that most of the 800 million food-deficit communities are in countries with the largest population rise.
Diouf, who got his Ph.D. in agricultural economics in Sorbonne, France, added that one of the organization's programs to face the challenge is to enhance technical cooperation among developing countries.
He pointed out the need of Africa, which has only six percent of its fields being irrigated, to learn from other developing countries to manage its water, 50,000 cubic meters of which flow into the sea each minute.
He briefed reporters about his plan to streamline the organizational structure of FAO and to decentralize its power.
"Currently three fourths of FAO's experts are in Rome. I hope in the next two years, one third of our experts will be working in the fields," he said, adding that on the other hand, he had created a Department of Sustainable Development to monitor the growing environmental issue. (09)