Priest Y.B. Mangunwijaya joins farmers' protest
Priest Y.B. Mangunwijaya joins farmers' protest
YOGYAKARTA (JP): Renowned writer and priest Y.B. Mangunwijaya
joined hundreds of farmers and students from Gadjah Mada
University here on Tuesday in a demonstration against perceived
unnecessary intervention in farmers' lives.
He was seen wearing a farmer's triangular bamboo hat and a
sarong at the protest at the university's School of Forestry that
involved about 200 farmers from dozens of villages in Magelang
regency. Farmers and students of the Alliance of Volunteers for
Saving Nature (Arupa) unfurled posters, one which read, "Do not
force farmers to buy fertilizer."
A survey from August to October by the Pesticide Action
Network -- Indonesia, an organization focusing on farming,
disclosed how many village cooperatives were no longer
functioning.
Coordinator Riza V. Tjahjadi said cooperatives offered prices
which were too low and they also lacked sufficient capital to buy
farmers' crops. Farmers are instead selling their crops to either
mill owners or loan sharks who determine prices.
The survey was carried out in West Sumatra, North Sumatra,
Riau, West Java, Central Java, East Kalimantan and South
Sulawesi.
The study was released in conjunction with World Food Day
which fell on Friday Oct. 16. Also on Friday 150 students
protested at the Yogyakarta governor's office. The member of
MAKAN (literally eat, short for Community for Food Concern) said
farmers had lost freedom to decide what crops they could plant.
On Tuesday a demonstrating farmer said, "The price of
fertilizers has been arranged by a monopoly. The price of rice
has been arranged. Then where is the value of the farmer?"
"Don't sacrifice farmers merely for the pride of self-
sufficiency!" he said.
Mangunwijaya said his support for farmers was to realize the
"people's sovereignty". "A people-oriented economy can only
emerge if the people's dignity is valued by the government."
The former government repeatedly increased the producer floor
price of unhusked rice for the benefit of farmers. But farmers
have said they are suffering losses because of the low selling
price of rice and the high price of fertilizers.
In 1985 former president Soeharto was rewarded by the Food and
Agricultural Organization for achieving self-sufficiency in rice
but since the early 1990s the country imported rice again.
(23/swa/44/01)