What are the possibilities for organic farming in Indonesia?
What are the possibilities for organic farming in Indonesia?
By Edhi Martono
YOGYAKARTA (JP): Now that the UN's Food and Agriculture
Organization officially stated in March its approval of organic
farming as productive and that its crop yields may help alleviate
world hunger, what can we do here?
Organic farming, for most of us in Indonesia, has little
meaning. Sadly, its benefits are understood by only a few who
concern themselves with healthy methods of producing basic needs,
especially food.
An organic farming system as a rule practices farming without
the use of chemicals. Everything is done naturally. Compost,
manure or other organic waste are used as fertilizers. No
pesticides or other chemicals are applied.
Plant protection techniques largely avoid and repel pests and
diseases, instead of killing or decimating them. The end results
of this farming method are, hopefully, cleaner and healthier
agricultural produce.
Organic farming has no damaging effects on the environment,
unlike conventional agricultural practices. Organic farming is
done in a more responsible manner, with benefits for humans and
their environment.
There are a lot of agricultural practices which are basically
organic. In fact, before chemicals became so widely used in
agriculture, organic methods were practiced. Organic farming has
picked up momentum elsewhere and seems to be the answer to the
chemicalization of agriculture. The underlying principle is, if
agriculture used to be practiced without any chemicals, why
should we now depend so much on them?
Experience also shows that the use of chemicals in the long
run guarantees neither high yield nor a healthy product. With
this in mind, proponents of organic farming manage their land and
farm using methods which are environmentally acceptable. And they
found out later that "environmentally acceptable" is equivalent
to going back to methods practiced by our ancestors.
The problem is that since the environmentally friendly
approach should be just that, it does not pay much attention to
yield or production, unlike intensive farming. Organic farming so
far is not an economical system to grow crops. It doesn't provide
a high yield, which also means it doesn't have a high return. Any
return which may be called "profit" comes from its higher product
security and lower consumer risk. Only if and when consumers are
willing to pay for these advantages will one be able to start
talking about profit.
The FAO said that the popularity of organic agriculture was
growing fast, especially in western Europe. It is estimated that
2 percent of retail food sold globally is produced organically.
The increase of organic food production is also very impressive.
Germany plans to increase its organic farmland to 20 percent in
the next 10 years, up almost tenfold from today.
But these advances are happening in places where subsistence
is not a key word. Developing countries like Indonesia cannot
thrive on organic farming as an income-generating activity.
The choice here, for the most part, is feeding the people.
This is achieved by both producing and purchasing. The producing
option, with regard to organic farming, may not be able to
fulfill people's needs.
But not many really believe in organic farming, since the
practice, when looked at from the point of view of farmers in the
developing world, is the traditional farming method of yore;
practices which the farmers were told to abandon in preference
for modern techniques, including the heavy use of chemicals, with
the promise of high yield.
The promise waned little by little, producing rice with a poor
flavor, pests such as the rice brown hopper and disease
outbreaks, not to mention farm loans with enormous problems.
These events made farmers lose their faith in institutionalized
programs, and later, in the program officers.
So organic farming got caught somewhere in the middle. To go
back to traditional farming methods, or organic farming, the same
effort must be made to convince farmers who have changed their
attitude and adopted the intensive farming model. But although
there is a growing uneasiness toward rice planting programs for
one, the alternative to these programs has never been officially
defined.
There have been some implementation programs of the planting
system; for, instance there was the Integrated Pest Management
(IPM) program. This program introduced farming methods which are
close to organic farming through environmental consciousness. In
the first years of IPM introduction, competent and knowledgeable
people were assigned to guide farmers via IPM field schools as
the program was managed under an ex-officio board of the IPM
program.
Later on, as the board was transferred to the Ministry of
Agriculture, less able and competent people became involved,
since the ministry used the "project approach" to the program.
Farming practices under IPM were actually a prelude, as some of
the farmers trained in IPM continued their quest for organic
farming. It was the official efforts and legitimation which were
shamelessly lacking, since those in charge did not seem to
understand the idea of making agriculture more environmentally
acceptable, and they had minimal technical know-how of IPM.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. A new paradigm on
agriculture, which has been adopted by many outside Indonesia, is
still doubted by most Indonesian agriculturists. Too many still
believe that modern technology, and not traditional-style
farming, is the one and only tool to modernize agriculture.
Biotechnology which gives rise to transgenic plants, the tissue
culture technique, "safer" chemicals, etc. is the rule rather
than the "conventional" way of making agriculture move. The
reluctance to adopt new ideas to reform agriculture may come not
from ignorance, but from the lack of insight, the inability to
reflect on what had been done, and in some cases, just plain
absence of technical knowledge.
When one asks the question of "what can we do about organic
farming", a paraphrasing of "what can we do about agriculture in
Indonesia", unfortunately the official answer is hidden beneath
reams of bureaucratic and administrative papers. Let farmers and
others who have genuine concern for agriculture in this country
answer it with action.
The writer is a lecturer in the School of Agriculture, Gadjah
Mada University, Yogyakarta.