Amendment of Law on Food Must be Fundamental

Food is Man’s primary need, therefore amendment of Law no 7 year 1996 (BN No 5934 page 208-258 etc) on food must be fundamental. Food satisfaction is part of man Individual Right. Fulfillment of need for food is most important as basic component for building high quality human resources.

Deputy chairman of commission IV of House Anna Muawanah told business news that food procurement at national and regional level was no guarantee for food resiliency or individual. This was because apart form food availability food resiliency at household/individual level depended highly on their access to food. In this case family income and purchasing power was a decisive factor in access to food.

Law no. 7 year 1996 on food is still very general and highly focused on food industry. In the implementation of the law there are still many obstacles such as in law enforcement, mostly sanctioning which are relatively light, not creating any deterrent effect on the law breaker.

Amendment of Law no 7/1996 on food is aimed at solving problems in food often in regard to quality of food, the content, production process, packaging, halal labeling, and most of all to maintain supply sufficiency, and to run fair and even distribution mechanism at affordable price to the people.

Meanwhile the president of PT Rajawali Nusantara Indonesia Bambang Proyono gave his input for the amendment of law no.7 year 1996 on food and proposed to include the global climate posed as a crusial factor to food production. In 2010 rain fell all year through causing sugar production to drop drastically. Therefore it was important to include climate change factor in the amendment of law no 7 1996 on food.

With the law on cultivation system, now farmers have a freedom to decided whatever plant to cultivate as long as they are regarded as profitable. Consequently sugar mills must come up with certain motivation steps like extending incentives or aid to encourage farmers to remain to plant sugar canes.