Budiawan, Yogyakarta – Floods and the shortage of rice stocks leading to higher prices for the essential commodity are two of the current problems facing the country.

On the surface, these two problems seem separate issues. However, a critical assessment of the rice "self-sufficiency" achieved in the mid-1980s reveals the two problems are interrelated. Floods as a result of environmental destruction have been at the cost of this momentary self-sufficiency – far too high a price to pay.

During most of the past 20 years, Indonesia has been a net rice importer. But just a few years earlier in 1984, the Food and Agriculture Organization awarded Indonesia for successfully achieving rice self-sufficiency. But as the FAO lauded Indonesia as a model developing country for managing to meet its national food needs, the rot was setting in.

Many factors were behind this failure of sufficiency, and the most important was the lack of concern about the environmental consequences of unchecked agricultural development.

Since the first Five-Year Development Plan (1968-1973), Indonesia under Soeharto had a strong ambition to achieve rice self-sufficiency, as it was realized that historically rice was not merely an economic commodity, but a strategic political commodity in Indonesia. Because of this ambition, the government mobilized various resources for the success of rice production.

The direct and visible result of such strategies was the tremendous increase of rice production. In 1970, the total production of rice was 19.2 million tons; in 1980, 29.6 million tons; and in 1990, 44.9 million tons. Despite this significant increase, as Indonesia's population growth was still relatively high – 1.8 percent, the country had to again import rice to secure its national stocks as the 1980s neared their end.

The issues of population pressure outside Java are now critical. Although the amount of land and resources outside Java seem abundant, soil fertility and other physical characteristics are not so promising for agricultural practices. Conversion from tropical rain forests to agricultural land does not always create land with good-quality crops, especially paddy fields. It should not surprise people when these lands are classified as critical; deforested and degraded.

As a result of a national policy to maintain rice self-sufficiency – especially the expansion of rice fields outside Java, lowland areas planted in rice increased in all regions except Java. In Kalimantan, for example, the expansion of lowland rice fields from 1980 to 1990 reached 4.9 percent; while in Sumatra, 2.5 percent; in Sulawesi, 2.4 percent. In Java there was a slight decrease of 0.2 percent. This might be related to rapid industrialization and other uses of land. However, during the same period, the harvested rice areas in Java increased by about 1.27 percent a year. This was an indication of an increased degree of intensive land-use practices on paddies.

The expansion of harvested-rice areas obviously had something to do with the government policies of rice intensification through BIMAS (mass guidance), INMAS (mass intensification), INSUS (special intensification) and OPSUS (special operations), coupled with extensive government investment in irrigation schemes. These programs were actually the application of land-saving technology methods, which, in turn, had serious environmental impacts.

Land-use practices have indeed pushed agricultural growth and the increase of rice production up to 1997. However, at the same time they have also served as an agent for land degradation. Official data estimates the rate of decline of forested land at no more than 200,000 hectares a year, however, some international agencies have put the annual rate of deforestation far higher, at about a million hectares.

When deforestation is defined as any change or transfer of forested land to other uses, the area deforested and the rate of deforestation in Indonesia is the highest in Southeast Asia. This is mainly caused by forest conversion into agricultural use, and for reservoirs and infrastructure needs. The rate is even higher when deforestation refers to all forest losses.

In the context of the Indonesian economy as a whole, forest conversion into agricultural land has inevitably contributed to the decline of forest area. This is because the expansion of agricultural land is directly associated with past policies of the government to maintain levels of rice self-sufficiency. It was also expected that such an effort could be replicated in food production in general. The long-term objective of such a policy is that in the future, rice production must not come from Java and Bali only, but also from other islands.

Such policies inevitably have caused land degradation, which can occur both in forest area and agricultural land. In 1980, the total area of degraded land reached 6.9 million hectares, up to 12.9 million ha in 1989, or a 6.4 percent annual increase.

Degradation inside forests mostly occurs in production and converted forests. In converted forests, land degradation refers to activities caused by the expansion of agricultural land. It is inevitable that this expansion will eat up forest land. The land conversion can be either through the "planned expansion" of agricultural land – for mostly rice, food crops and some cash crops – or through "spontaneous" colonization and planned official migration.

Regarding this land degradation, the government has taken some efforts to mitigate it, including reforestation and forestation programs. But these efforts have not been significant compared to the total environmental damage. In 1994/95, budgeted expenditure for this program amounted to only Rp 452 billion, to rehabilitate – and cover – 152,292 ha of critical land.

Learning from the "success story" of past rice self-sufficiency, it is apparent that the increasing rice production at the expense of land degradation will only make this production unsustainable. Importing rice, if it is considered a solution, is only a partial one. Reforestation and a more proper intensification of agricultural development can perhaps solve these two mutually related problems.

[The writer is a lecturer in Sanata Dharma University's graduate program in Yogyakarta. He can be reached at bdwn@lycos.com.]