Conversion of agricultural
land continues so it increasingly threatens the national food security system.
In 2013, agricultural land conversion reached 63,600 hectares, and is projected
to reach 800,000 hectares by 2020. The conversion of agricultural land is,
amongst others, the area of fertile agricultural land is diminishing,
agricultural production, particularly food, in the long-term is threatened,
farmers lost their jobs, unemployment and poverty occurred, urbanization
increases, it encourages deforestation, and displaces local civilization.
Head of the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), Suryamin, in
Jakarta on Thursday (October 17) said that conversion in Indonesia is very
alarming. Farmland conversion has an impact on the number of farmers. BPS noted
that number agricultural household (RT) in Indonesia has decreased 5.04 million
family heads in the past 10 years. Based on the 2003 Agricultural Census, in
2003 there were 31.17 millions of agricultural households. Meanwhile, based on
the 2013 Agricultural Census (ST 2013), the number was found to be 26.13
million households.
Suryamin said that in economics, the more developed a
country is, the community will shift from agriculture to commerce, industry and
services. Nevertheless, he hopped that there is an attempt to address the
decline in agricultural land and businesses. Each year, there is an average
decrease of 1.75% of agricultural households in Indonesia. Ten years ago,
57.48% of agricultural business exist in Java. Now, only 51.38%. By percentage,
DKI Jakarta province experienced the highest decrease, i.e. 7.65% per year,
while the lowest decrease is experienced by Bengkulu at 0.12%. “The land
conversion is very worrying,” said Suryamin.
Meanwhile, Indonesian NGOs for Global Justice (IGJ)
stated that agricultural liberalization has resulted in many community
farmlands to decline because they are replaced by industrial plants. Open and
unequal competition causes the decline in community agricultural lands due to
industrial activities. Executive Director of IGJ, M Riza Damanik, reminded that
in Indonesia alone, there are approximately 100,000 hectares of agricultural land
being converted every year. Moreover, according to him, liberalization is
believed to cause the marginalization of local agricultural products in the
domestic market by imported products.
Liberalization is also believed to keep away the
achievement of food sovereignty of a country and replace it with the expansion of
foreign private sector involvement through the instruments of public private
partnerships (PPP) and food certificates. To that end, the government was urged
to protect the domestic market from trade and investment liberalization.
Additionally, biong or intermediaries, community leaders,
and government officials are also one of the main actors of agricultural land
conversion that increasingly threatens national food security. It is said that
boing, community leaders and government officials often become intermediaries
to approach the owners of agricultural land so they would sell their assets.
They often become investors’ accomplice to smoothen their business, including
for obtaining land.
In
addition to biong, internal factors that lead farmers to sell their land is
there is a pressing need, farmers were promised to continue working on the land
although the land has been sold, farming motivation has declined, the influence
of liberalization environment, and the lure of income from outside agriculture
sector. In addition, there are external factors faced by farmers to sell their
farmlands, such as development policy, rational expectation, political economy
which is not pro agriculture, market condition warfare, network, monopolies,
liberalization and land rent, up to cultural factors.
Business News - October 21, 2013
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