Malnutrition stalks children in Cirebon

Nana Rukmana, The Jakarta Post/Indramayu

Food shortages and malnutrition are not problems confined to barren areas, but also to major rice-producing areas such as Cirebon and Indramayu.

In Cirebon, at least 3,700 of the 211,138 children under the age of five are undernourished, while in Indramayu, hundreds of people living in Totoran in Sindang district here have to make do with only aking (dried leftover rice) to eat. This is not because of food shortages in the area, but because they can no longer afford to buy rice.

Officials have said that in Cirebon most cases of malnutrition are found in poor pockets, such as Kapetakan and Kaliwedi districts.

Head of the Cirebon regental health office Retina Sedjati said poverty and parents' lack of understanding about nutrition were to blame.

"The two factors are the major causes of malnutrition among children below five years of age," said Retina.

She said, however, malnutrition cases in Cirebon had declined over the past two years. There were 5,000 malnourished children in 2003, while, a year later, the figure dropped to 4,005. "The number declined further to 3,700 children this year," Retina said.

The Cirebon regental administration has allocated Rp 1 billion for the provision of food supplements to children in need and to carry out so-termed "healthy living" campaigns.

Meanwhile, in Indramayu, around 100 poor residents in Totoran village have been eating aking for the past two weeks, saying they can longer afford to buy rice. The price of rice in Indramayu ranges from Rp 3,400 (34 U.S. cents) to Rp 3,500 per kilogram now, while most residents in the area work as menial laborers earning Rp 10,000 per day at most. "We certainly cannot buy rice with such low pay, so we have to make do with aking, which is cheaper," said a resident, Akub, who has five sons.

Akub said that aking, which cost around Rp 800 to Rp 1,000 per kg, is usually mixed with a pinch of salt and eaten with dried fish and urap (boiled cassava leaves mixed with a dressing of grated coconut).

Indramayu regency, which encompasses 1,971.15 sq km, has 28 districts and a population of 2.3 million. It is said to have the largest area of rice farms in West Java at 109,000 hectares. Meanwhile, Cirebon regency, which encompasses 989.7 sq km, has a population of two million people, 545,847 of whom work in the agricultural sector. Its total rice plantation area reaches 50,000 hectares.