Policy on soybean cake affects farmers
Policy on soybean cake affects farmers
JAKARTA (JP): The government's recent decision to lift
restrictions on soybean cake imports is likely to hurt domestic
farmers in the short term, an academician says.
Professor Bungaran Saragih, the director of the Bogor
Agricultural University's Center for Development Studies, said
this week that lifting import restrictions at this time would be
disadvantageous to farmers.
He acknowledged, however, that it would have to happen sooner
or later.
"When the government still limited soybean cake imports, it
was only a matter of time before the restrictions were removed,"
he said.
But under the current conditions, he said, farmers would still
have a long way to go before they could achieve the government's
target of making the country self-sufficient in soybeans by the
end of the Sixth Five-Year Development Plan period in 1999.
"I think the government's target is too ambitious. It will
take us another five to 10 years before we can become self-
sufficient in soybeans," Saragih said.
Director General of Food Crops Amrin Kahar said earlier this
year that the government's program for the current (1996/97)
fiscal year was to sustain the country's self-sufficiency in rice
and strive towards self-sufficiency in maize and soybeans.
He expected the country to reach self-sufficiency in soybeans
by 1999, when productivity could reach about three tons per
hectare, up from the present 1.1 tons per hectare.
Soybean production last year increased by 7.49 percent to 1.6
million tons over the 1994 level.
Saragih pointed out that Indonesian soybeans can not yet
compete with imports, such as those from the United States and
China, which are higher in productivity and quality.
In order to become more competitive, he said, Indonesian
soybean farmers must be capable of choosing the right farming
techniques, an aspect which they generally lack.
Saragih said that the government should focus its self-
sufficiency targets on other commodities, such as vegetables and
fruit. "These have potential and we could actually do well
without imports," he said.
The government in April removed restrictions on soybean cake
imports after years of requiring poultry feed producers -- which
use soybean cake as a raw material -- to buy a certain amount of
locally-produced soybean cake for every unit they import.
In a deregulation package earlier this month, the government
also allowed general traders -- besides feed producer-importers
-- to import soybean cake.
In 1993, the local-to-import ratio was reduced from 40:60 to
30:70. It is presently at 20:80. The measures are expected to
prepare local soybean cake producers to face the total lifting of
import restrictions. (pwn)