RI needs food security policy, experts say

RI needs food security policy, experts say

Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

After years of increasing rice imports, Indonesia should now think of adopting a comprehensive policy so as to ensure food security and avoid a food crisis in the future, experts said on Wednesday.

H.S. Dillon of the Center For Agricultural Policy Studies and Siswono Yudhohusodo of The Indonesian Farmers Union (HKTI) said separately that the government must now embark on a concerted effort to draft a policy for the attainment of self-sufficiency in rice, the country's main staple food.

The policy, Dillon said, had to include the availability of paddy fields, fertilizer, good seeds, improved agricultural machinery, and reduced transportation costs.

"Without such a policy, we won't be able to achieve rice self- sufficiency," Dillon said, adding that raising the import duty on rice would not resolve the farmers' problems.

Rice makes up a major part of the diet for most Indonesians, with Java being the main producer.

Separately, Siswono said Indonesia could not afford the consequences of rice scarcity and, therefore, it should now move on to turn around the decline in domestic rice output and increasing rice imports.

"We can't just watch domestic rice production failing to meet demand every year, thus increasing imports. We must take positive measures to stop this trend and achieve self-sufficiency in rice," Siswono told The Jakarta Post.

Indonesia achieved self-sufficiency in rice production in 1984 but, since then, growth in rice output has been unable to meet the growth in rice demand due to a rising population.

Analysts have said the failure to maintain self-sufficiency in rice was due to, among other things, the massive conversion of rice land to residential, development and industrial uses.

Data from the Central Bureau of Statistics shows that the country's rice fields have shrunk to some 14 million hectares now from 16.7 million hectares in 1983, a reduction of 15,000 hectares per annum.

In addition, the reduction in the level of subsidies for fertilizers and pesticides as well as the reduction in import duty on rice have also contributed to the failure to maintain self-sufficiency.

Consequently, Indonesia has to import rice to meet the continually increasing domestic demand.

Rice imports have increased drastically from only 464,449 tons in 1989 to 5.8 million tons in 1998, making Indonesia one of the world's largest rice importers.

This year, a number of analysts have predicted that the country will import some 2.5 million tons of rice. But some officials have downplayed the figure, saying rice imports should stay at 1.3 million tons this year.

One of the ways to increase domestic rice output would be through the opening up of new rice fields, said Siswono.

Therefore, he suggested that the government speed up its plan to open 100,000 hectares of new paddy fields every year.

"The government must encourage oil-rich provinces such as Riau, South Sumatra and East Kalimantan to earmark some of their revenues from oil and gas for the opening of new paddy fields," he said.

The Ministry of Agriculture has proposed that the government open 100,000 hectares of new paddy fields per year to avoid rice shortages by the end of the decade, but the plan has not been endorsed by the Cabinet.

The ministry has also proposed that the government raise the import duties on basic foodstuffs, including rice, to encourage farmers to plant more crops.

Minister of Agriculture Bungaran Saragih was quoted by Kompas as saying that President Megawati Soekarnoputri had agreed to the proposal.

Bungaran contended that the measure was necessary because developed countries, such as the European nations and the U.S, as well as rice producing countries like Thailand and India, were imposing higher import duties on rice than the duty imposed by Indonesia.

At present, the country's import duty on rice stood at 30 percent, or Rp 430 per kilogram.