Fidelis E. Satriastanti – In the face of increasing food scarcity, Indonesia has no choice but to reduce its dependence on rice, according to nongovernmental organizations.
According to a report released by British aid group Oxfam on Wednesday, "Growing a Better Future," the prices of staple foods such as rice and maize are likely to increase by up to 80 percent by 2030.
If the effects of climate change are factored in, prices could skyrocket by up to 180 percent in less than two decades. This could affect Indonesia more than other countries, activists said, because of its dependence on rice.
"If you look at rice-consuming countries, Indonesia consumes up to 139 kilograms of rice per person per year. Compare that with Japan, which only consumes 60 kilograms per person per year or Thailand's 90 kilograms per person per year," Tejo Wahyu Djatmiko, coordinator of the Alliance for Prosperous Villages, said during the release of the Oxfam report in Jakarta on Wednesday.
But diversifying Indonesia's diet is not that easy, he said, especially after three decades under the New Order regime where rice was the priority food crop. To deal with food scarcity, Tejo said the government needed to start paying more attention to food producers – the farmers.
"Indonesia's farmers often work on small plots of land, they have little formal education and they use up to 85 percent of their own money to manage the land," he said.
In addition, according to recent data from the UN Millennium Development Goals, about half of Indonesia's small-scale farming households suffered from undernourishment.
"So, there's injustice in the distribution because the ones producing these staple foods don't get to eat the staple foods," said Roysepta Abimanyu, Oxfam Indonesia's policy advocacy campaign manager.
He said that at the start of the year, there were 925 million hungry people worldwide, and by the end of the year, extreme weather and rising food prices would likely drive up that number to one billion. This means one out of every seven people worldwide go hungry, Roysepta said.
But Haryono, head of the research agency at the Agriculture Ministry, said Indonesia was not at great risk when it came to food scarcity.
"I wouldn't worry too much about the [Oxfam] research because we're in the safe zone for [rice] paddies. In addition, we have already implemented food diversification, which means growing other crops besides [rice]," Haryono said.
He said that the government had been raising awareness about the need to shift from rice to other crops.
"We have officials at the provincial and district levels who have been campaigning about the shift and it's going remarkably," he said. "But why isn't it showing results? Because it takes time to turn it into a movement. For instance, we also need to move businesspeople and society."
However, he said he was convinced that the campaign would produce results within the next 5 to 10 years.