The Agriculture Sector had always been the subject of discourse time
after as its strategic role diminished.
All over the country grievance were voiced that low productivity and
poor competitiveness of Agro-products were on account of shares mistake of the
Ministry of Agriculture and Ministry of Trade. The Government was accused of
treating the Agro-sector as the under privileged sector.
The hard struggle to attain self-sufficiency in food was due to lack of
Government’s attention in developing the agricultural sector. It was not just
the Ministry of Agriculture who was responsible
for the matter, but also the Ministry of Trade who should control the
overflow of imported agricultural products.
Beside preventing or restricting import of agriculture commodity, the Government
should also invite investors in agro-business to invest in Indonesia. In this
case the invitation must include incentives for them. As there was no serious
attention by the Government for the agro sector and food resiliency, price up
jump of agricultural happened at certain condition like low season.
If the government planned to make the agricultural sector a strategic
sector, Government must take side and fight for the right side in the case. The
question is should Indonesia’s 204 million population be looked at as market
for domestic products or for imported products?
Development of the agro-sector and support for the result, should be
along term program which had been the government’s discourse continually by the
government. However, realization of the development program of the agro-sector,
there never was.
All must be programmed and must be used as the Government’s master plan.
Naturally it takes a thorough planning to build the agriculture sector as well
as proper implementation of the plan.
Farmers circles expressed their grievances about the Government’s low
concern. They claimed that if this nation was to progress it was necessary to
re-glorify agriculture including the maritime industry not the way things were
today, where things were moving aimlessly. It was expected that with advanced
agro-sector, farmers’ product could enter modern markets.
Today the process of development seemed to put agriculture as the under-privileged
sector. Thereby the course of development seemed to be moving toward unclear
direction. It was mentioned that national food importing had come to the red
zone and must therefore be stopped at once. However to stop import, strong
political will was needed, because so far nobody was ever able to answer the
question, will this over importing ever end?
Importing would stop with full understanding and conscience to love own
national product. It should be borne in mind the national food resiliency plan
must be carried out by all the regions. Moreover food resiliency was easily
measurable by people’s access to food, procurement of food, security of food,
and distribution of food. Somehow the four factors were still unbalance in this
country. Nearly 40% of food was produced only in Java. The result was that
other islands were getting more and more dependent on Java.
Food was one of the crucial problems in the agricultural sector. The
price up jump of food today was prove of Government’s failure in managing
essential needs. What’s more, the government was powerless in facing the
emergence of Kartel. Why then, did Kartel have to prevail? Because price of
food was left to market’s mechanism so oligopoly could freely put the market
under the thumb.
The condition had been going on for a long time, but the Government did
not have a long term plan which could keep national food industry from being
the Kartel’s plaything. Supposedly the Government formed a National Food
Resilience Forum whereby the market price
could be under control and be overcome. If this institution had done its
task they could have double their role.
In handling price increase of essential needs, the Government seemed to
prefer taking instant solution. Each time there was shortage of food, the
Government easily take to importing by reasoning that price would fall. In
reality, price kept soaring up.
The government overlooked the fact that to supply sufficient for the
people was the state’s responsibility as written in the constitution. Therefore
supposedly put into effect Law no. 18 2012 on food. Again the Government seemed
not serious enough in overcoming food shortage problem. Suspicions crept in
that there were individuals who deliberately create a condition where import
freely stormed in.
News in the print media disclosed that in some traditional markets,
price of various food and agro-commodities soared up significantly over the
weekend. Prices of chili, red onion, and garlic showed increase as high as Rp10,000
per kg against the previous week.
Vegetable sellers at the Kliwon Market, Central Java said that the type
of chili which increased notably in price was the “ devil’s chili “. Previously
price of the Devil’s Chili came to Rp40,000 per kg against the previous
Rp30,000 The same increase happened to Green Chili to the level of Rp15,000 per
kg or increasing by Rp3,000 per kg.
Meanwhile Rawit chili increased to the level of Rp20,000 per kg against
the previous Rp12,000 per kg. While price of red chili dropped to Rp22,000 per
kg. Meanwhile price of curly red chili was stable at Rp20,000 per kg over past
week.
Price increase was indicated by red onion which went up to become
Rp25,000 per kg against the previous Rp18,000 per kg. Price of garlic increased
by Rp8,000 to become Rp38,000 per kg. Fruit tomato also rose by Rp1,000.- to
become Rp15,000 Traders thought that increase of selling price of some types of
chili was on account of limited harvest yield so stock at the market was unable
balance demand. In this case marketplace operation through the Logistic Board (
BULOG ) would be needed to stabilize price.
Only trouble was, food problem in Indonesia was not just in horticulture
but also in meat as indicated by price up jump in beef. In this case the
Government’s was urged to increase production of local cattle. Hence the need
for meat at national level could be met. Such could be realized by stepping up
control on minimizing cut of productive female cows.
Besides the Government must also increase capacity of cattle breeders
and breeders’ managerial capability in managing livestock whereby to promote
breeders’ welfare.
To minimize dependency on imported cow, the government was advised to
mobilize cows from livestock farms to marketing centers thereby price of cow
was expected to drop. Cattle farms were located in Central Java, East Java,
West Nusa Tenggara and East Nusa Tenggara, while consumers were concentrate in
Jakarta. To ease distribution flow of products to consumers it was necessary to
run integrated infra-structure development; among others harbors, cows cutting
centers and transportation facilities.
So far there had been no support of transportation facilities from
production centers to consumers centers. For that matter the Government was
demanded to find the best solution to speed up distribution process.
The long distance between production centers was a hindrance to the
effort toward self-reliance in meat program proclaimed by the Government. In
this case it would be advisable for the Government to give incentive to regions
who contributed to the self-supporting in cow acceleration plan in 2014.
Census of the Central Board of Statistics ( BPS ) had it that the
population of consumed cow in Indonesia was around 14.8 million cows, dairy
cows 597.2 thousand and buffalo 1.3 million. This data should be the
Government’s reference whereby to meet market demand.
Empowerment of the Agricultural sector, including fishery called for
support of the banking sector as intermediary institution. The Ministry of
Maritime and Fishery Sharif Cicip Sutardjowas expecting that banks would
support in financing of embankment revitalization program in various regions
such as along the Pantura northern coastline.
Support of the banking sector would soon be beneficial to embankment
revitalization plan launched by the Ministry of Maritime and Fishery. The
expectation was that with the skim credit plafond People’s Credit Business (
KUR ) would extend credit to embankment operator groups between Rp20million to
Rp400million.
The capital would soon be used to rehabilitate embankments in some
regions between cultivators and the private sector. The effort by some
embankment operators in some regions for the past few months on minimizing the
risk of disease infection had enabled them to yield 15 to 18 tons of vaname shrimps
per hectare per season. Meanwhile in one year the expected production output of
vaname shrimps was 39 tons per hectare.
For that matter, the Government would continue to channel out bank’s
credit to the fishery sector. While initiating counseling for fishermen in
accessing bank’s service, the Government would also step up quality of human
resources for communities like the Common Business Group [ KUB ] by setting up
cooperative societies. The program was also to make the legal status of
fishermen in accordance with bank’s requirements. Financing was essential in
increasing productivity of fishery. For that matter it was necessary to publicize
financial resources, especially banks.
The Plantation Sub-sector as part of the agricultural sector was undergoing
the same thing, yet this sector had been the prima-donna of the agricultural
sector. Unfortunately there were three main problems faced by this sector which
contributed most to trade balance.
According to the Indonesia Agro-business and Agro-industry Community
[MAL], since 2010 the total area of plantation sector had been contracting. For
example the rubber commodity whose total area, relatively never changed for the
past 4 years, i.e. 3.2 million hectares. Meanwhile productivity level tend to
decline in places which were mostly people’s plantation. The coconut commodity,
which was 96%people’s commodity, only produced 0.5 ton of copra per ha.
Meanwhile productivity of people’s palm trees were still low, only 3.5
tons per ha on the average. And yet the total area of people’s palm plantation
came to 40% or 3.4 million ha of the total palm plantation in Indonesia
amounting to 8.9 million ha. The slowdown was on account of three things:
firstly, Investors disappointment who believed that investment in the
plantation sub-sector no longer promised attractive return on investment.
Secondly, insufficient research activities due to poor financial
support. In a sluggish atmosphere, there was no motivation which might inspire
or encourage people to invest agricultural instruments or plant seed. A far cry
from the condition in Brazil and Malaysia. Thirdly, lack of infra structure at
the plantation centers. Businesspeople could not afford to procure big budget.
Ideally, 30% of budget was provided by the Government.
For that matter, MAI set forth a recommendation to support agricultural
development plan in the plantation sub-sector like re-engineering,
revitalization of the core –plasma system, and upgrading of agricultural infra
structure. Furthermore the Government must re-construct up streaming of
agriculture. In line with that, it was necessary to reformulate the market at
home and abroad; to harmonize regulations and to synchronize the agro-business
and agro-industry industry.
Up to Quarter III of 2012, GDP contribution of plantation sub-sector to
agricultural sector based on applicable
price rose by 8.14%. Meanwhile GDP based on constant price 2000 rose by
30.98%from 18.98% in 2011 to 24.326% in 2012.
To consider that the agricultural sector in the broadest sense of the
word had a wide multiplier effect particularly in opening job opportunities, it
became imperative that the central and local Governments be more concerned
about the agricultural sector. Ironically, in many provinces including those
where land were fertile, the contribution of agricultural sector to GDP was
still less compared to the contribution of the sectors of industry, trading,
hotel business and restaurant business. (SS)
Business News - March 06,2013
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