Nani Afrida – Paddy farmer Sewi, 50, spent heavily before the harvest in May to save his crops from rats and pests.
"I pay hunters Rp 3,000 for each rat they kill," said Sewi, who only has one hectare of land at the rice production center of Rawa Dalem, Indramayu, West Java.
Sewi and other farmers in the hamlet have suffered dearly this year as they have had to spend more on production costs, without any assistance from the government.
Formerly, farmers spent Rp 4.5 million (US$529) for production per hectare, but now the cost has soared to Rp 6 million. Sewi is unsure whether the income from the harvest can cover the production costs.
Pests and rats are just two among an array of challenges that most poor farmers have to confront, in spite of a whopping Rp 40 trillion annual influx from government for agricultural development. This year the spending has leapt to more than Rp 55 trillion.
The fund includes assistance for free seeds, pesticides, fertilizers, irrigation, roads, dams, and agricultural experts commissioned in villages, to help boost productivity.
According to the Agriculture Ministry, around 44.1 million people work as farmers, accounting for 42 percent of the country's total workforce. The majority of farmers are categorized as poor and own less than 0.3 hectares of land.
Worse, most farmers are now held hostage by cheap chemical fertilizers, which encourage irrational use. It was not until the fall of the Soeharto regime in 1998 that fertilizers became a serious issue for farmers, when the government decided to allocate more than Rp 10 trillion annually to subsidize the price.
However, farmers have to go through convoluted bureaucratic procedures to buy the subsidized fertilizers; moreover, the products are frequently in short supply during planting seasons due to hoarding by price speculators.
"Securing sufficient fertilizer for farmers is more challenging now than it was during the Soeharto era," said Nana Senjaya, a farmer from Subang, West Java.
He recalls that years ago he used to buy fertilizer from a village cooperative unit (KUD) at an affordable price. But now, it is just too difficult. "It's just impossible nowadays to plant without [chemical] fertilizers, no matter how expensive the product is," said Nana.
But easy access to cheap fertilizers alone did not do any good for farmers who lacked a sufficient irrigation system. The country's irrigation system was last restored during the Soeharto era, leaving it now in an extremely poor condition.
In Indramayu, West Java, for instance, many irrigation gates have been stolen, forcing farmers to use banana trees to open or close the gates. In another rice center at Karawang, West Java, most of the irrigation channels are clogged with garbage, and some are already shallow. And in Cirebon, West Java, paddy farmers have to compete with sugar factories to obtain irrigated water.
The government has targeted the production of unhusked rice to reach 70 million tons, up by 2.4 percent from 68.06 million tons last year. But despite the expected rise in production, farmers remain unable to raise their bargaining power when it comes to determining the selling price.
Mardjana, a farmer from Lemahabang hamlet in Karawang, said he would receive higher revenue by selling his paddy to middle-men than to the government through the state logistic company PT Bulog. Farmers need to sell their crops immediately and at a good price because they need cash to start planting again.
After the harvest, Madjana and Sewi end up buying rice for their families at higher prices than those at which they sold their paddy. Unhusked rice can only be stored in a warehouse for a maximum of six months.
Farmers would also prefer to have a stable price structure for their product so that they can determine precise expenditure and income.
Bulog president director Sutarto Alimoeso said the company had aggressively tried to absorb the commodity from farmers to help stabilize the price, and to prevent traders from speculating on prices.
Since April Bulog has raised its buying price ceiling to lure farmers to sell their rice to the company. "This strategy will cut out the role of the middle-man," said Sutarto.
But the company's effort to turn the game around seems to be difficult as brokers now offer farmers loans should they agree to sell their rice to them.
"We still need to sell the rice to the brokers as they provide loans," said Sutatang, a farmer from West Java. "The government often tells us to go to the bank if we want to get a loan. But the banks expect us to provide collateral, which we cannot provide."