Team begins food security inspection

Team begins food security inspection

JAKARTA (JP): A fact-finding mission of non-government
organizations of seven Southeast Asian countries has started work
on the food security condition in six provinces here.

Chairman of the group of non-government organizations (NGO),
researcher Walden Bello, said Wednesday the mission, which has
got under way in Jakarta, began on Jan. 25 and will end on Feb.6.

Apart from Jakarta the 15-member mission will cover some areas
highlighted in the media -- West Java, East Java, Kupang, East
Timor and East Kalimantan.

Walden Bello, co-director of a research group, Focus on the
Global South in Bangkok, said members were of diverse
specialties, mainly in agriculture and food security.

The members are grouped in the Southeast Asian Food Security
and Fair Trade Council, chaired by Bello.

"We ... want to see the real situation of Indonesia's scarcity
of food as we have read about it in the international media,"
Bello told a media conference held by the local branch of the
International Pesticide Action Network.

The mission, he said, was being conducted at the request of
its Indonesian member and partner, the Pesticide Action Network,
"so as to find ways in which we, as a region, can respond to this
crisis."

A report with recommendations would be released after the
mission's completion, he said.

The council, he added, originated from the 1996 Southeast
Asian NGO Conference on Food Security and Fair Trade held in the
Philippines in 1996 when several groups in the region and the
Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations gathered
to discuss pressing concerns of food availability and
affordability, especially that of rice.

The government last revealed that 17.1 million households or
around 100 million people would go hungry and would need to
import at least 4.1 million tons of rice.

Among crucial issues the mission was seeking to establish the
extent of the crisis; whether it was systemic or simply a result
of extremely unfavorable weather patterns, the effectiveness of
massive aid packages and impact of further indebtedness and
proposed aid schemes on the Indonesian populace.

Adi Sasono, the Minister for Cooperatives and Small
Enterprises and Minister of Food and Horticulture A.M. Saefuddin
were among officials the council would like to meet.

Obaidillah Khan, one of the team members and an ex-Food and
Agricultural Organization staffer, remarked that unrest and crime
would continue to prevail if the government failed to meet basic
needs for food.

The mission's report would also be brought to multilateral
agencies such as the FAO and the World Bank, Bello said.

The Council plans to make a formal presentation of the report
in a conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on Feb. 24 to 26 this
year. (01)