Legislators warn of impending food crisis

Legislators warn of impending food crisis

JAKARTA (JP): Members of the House of Representatives
expressed concern here yesterday over the high prices of several
foodstuffs, caused by scarcity of supply, saying that the
situation could lead to a national food crisis.

Jusuf Syakir of the United Development Party's (PPP) faction
at the House and Yahya Nasution of the Indonesian Democratic
Party's (PDI) faction were among the legislators who urged the
government to take more serious steps in managing the national
food supply.

"The soaring prices of red chilies and meat, as well as the
need for Indonesia to import foodstuffs like rice, fruit, milk,
corn and maybe even red chilies might be an indication that we
will be facing a national food crisis," Yahya said at a meeting
of the House's Commission VII, which oversees food, trade and
financial affairs, with State Minister of Food Ibrahim Hasan
yesterday.

Yahya pointed out that the office of the State Minister of
Food should intensify its research into farming variety
improvement, which is important to increase the productivity of
Indonesia's food resources.

"We don't want to be eating imported food when we enter the
free trade era," he said.

Jusuf said the scarcity and high prices of foodstuffs were at
a serious stage, which necessitated the establishment of a
National Food Council.

"I think a National Food Council would be very helpful to
coordinate actions, so any food crisis can be quickly dealt
with," Jusuf said.

Chilies

Legislators yesterday also questioned the government about the
steep fluctuations of prices of red chilies in the last couple of
weeks.

According to various news reports, prices of red chilies or
cabe merah across the country have lately soared by up to 300
percent.

Observers say the price hike is due to the upcoming Idul Fitri
holiday and an increase in overall demand. The National Logistics
Agency, Bulog, earlier this week vowed to supply the market with
it's own stocks of red chilies, in a move to bring prices back to
normal.

But so far, such efforts have failed to cut down the
commodity's prices.

A number of analysts have recently suggested importing the
commodity, which is an essential ingredient in most of the
country's food.

Ibrahim said yesterday the demand for red chilies has been
increasing world-wide over the last five years. During the same
period, demand in Indonesia has gone up by 30 percent.

"But the increase in demand has not been met by similar
increases in production, productivity and planting areas... In
fact, production in 1993 decreased by 2.5 percent from 1992
previous year," Ibrahim said.

He said the increase in demand was caused by the growing
number of food-processing industries, such as instant noodles,
which used red chili as an ingredient.

"It is therefore understandable that prices of red chilies
have soared from Rp 3,000 to up to Rp 15,000 per kg," he said.

According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, production of
red chilies has shown negative growth since 1991, dropping by 2.5
percent to a low of 315,385 tons in 1993.

However, production increased by 0.49 percent in 1994 to
316,915 tons.

The growth of planting areas for red chilies also showed
negative figures between 1991 -- when planting areas reached
168,061 hectares -- and 1993.

In 1993, planting areas reached a low of 157,499 hectares,
although they increased by 3.56 percent in 1994 to 161,090
hectares.

Productivity between 1991 and 1993 also showed slow growth, at
less than two percent. In 1994, productivity fell by 1.75 percent
to 1.96 tons per hectare, down from 2 tons per hectare in the
previous year. (pwn)