Papuans suffer food price rises
R.K. Nugroho, The Jakarta Post, Jayapura
The prices of basic foods in the Irian Jaya regency of Jayawijaya have risen sharply due the lack of regular aircraft transporting the essential commodities to the town's capital city of Wamena from Jayapura.
As an example, rice is being sold at Rp 17,000 per kilogram in Wamena and Rp 25,000 per kg in Puncak Jaya regency for the last three months following last October's crash of a cargo plane that regularly carried basic foodstuffs to the town.
The normal price of rice is Rp 3,500 per kg on the market. The Jayapura Logistics Agency (Dolok) sells its rice to distributors at only Rp 2,700 per kg.
"But in Wamena the price of Dolok-type rice reaches up to Rp 17,000 per kg," Irian Jaya's provincial Dolok head Sotono told The Jakarta Post.
He said a similar type of rice was sold at Rp 25,000 per kg in Puncak Jaya, a 150 percent increase from Rp 10,000 per kg in July last year.
Sotono said the sharp increase was due to the high cost of transportation from the provincial capital of Jayapura to Wamena.
Dolok was charged Rp 7,000 per kg of basic foodstuffs as a transportation fee from Jayapura to Wamena, a trip which takes at least 45 minutes by plane, he added.
From Wamena, the arriving foodstuffs will usually be transported to Puncak Jaya by small planes to fulfill the demands of people there. The transportation fee was an additional Rp 13,000 per kg for foodstuffs.
The soaring price of rice has forced most Papuans in Jayawijaya to go back to their original tradition of eating cassava as their daily staple food.
The infrequency of flights to remote towns has also caused the prices of other staple foods to rise. Sugar was sold in Puncak Jaya at Rp 9,000 per kg up from Rp 4,000 in July, while the price of cooking oil increased from Rp 6,000 per kg to Rp 13,000.
The Transal cargo aircraft crashed last October in Jayapura's Sentani airport due to engine failure, killing one person.
Since then, the regular cargo flights for basic commodities to Wamena have almost come to a standstill.
The Indonesian Military (TNI) had sent a Hercules aircraft to replace the ill-fated cargo plane, but the intervention still failed to reduce the rising prices as it could only fly at least once a month to Wamena carrying eight kinds of basic foodstuff.
"The efforts by TNI are not effective because the use of Hercules is very limited and it has to focus on fulfilling the military needs," Sotono said.
He said around 300,000 tons of basic commodities should be transported to Wamena per month to meet the demands of locals.
However, the shortage of rice and other basic foods are expected to be addressed in near future after private expedition company PT Manunggal Air hired two Russian cargo planes to replace its 11-ton load capacity Transal.
The two Antonov aircraft started to transport 48 tons of basic foodstuffs from Jayapura to Wamena on Thursday.
"The flights will continue until the food crisis is addressed," Sotono said.
Manunggal Air director Muchtar Yahya told the Post that the arrival of the new cargo planes was expected to overcome the flight problem confronting the Irian Jaya administration to transport staple commodities to Wamena.
"We hope the current prices of basic foods will decrease by at least a half," he said.
He said his company rented the two planes for a period of three months, adding that the rental agreement can be extended if necessary.
Yahya said the ill-fated plane was being repaired in Germany.