The specter of food shortages

It seems that serious attention needs to be paid to the problems of food shortages and reduced purchasing power.

According to a report from this newspaper's local correspondent at least 4,000 inhabitants of Papanrejo, in the Kotabumi district of Northern Lampung, are forced to eat gadung, a type of wild tuber.

People there can no longer afford to buy cassava to make tiwul, which they had been eating in place of rice.

Although Minister of Health Suyudi says gadung or tiwul raises no problems from a nutritional point of view, nevertheless the situation surely represents a decline in the quality of their nutrition, considering they are used to eating rice.

Prices of goods and services are reported to have gone up in a number of regions.

We hope the authorities in the regions which are experiencing these difficulties will be quick to extend aid.

Surely we don't want to add to the distress our people are already suffering since the death of 415 people in the Jayawijaya regency (in Irian Jaya).

-- Suara Karya, Jakarta