Markus Junianto Sihaloho – Legislators have praised the recently passed Food Law as laying the foundation for boosting food security, but critics contend that it leaves the question of agrarian reform dangerously open to interpretation.
Viva Yoga Mauladi, a member of the House of Representatives' Commission IV, overseeing agricultural and forestry affairs, said over the weekend that it was crucial for the government to be able to ensure food supplies and counteract speculative efforts driving up the price of both domestically sourced and imported food.
"Sukarno once said that a country that is not self-sufficient in food is a country whose sovereignty is under threat," he said, referring to the country's first president.
He warned that Indonesia's food supplies were currently under the control of a "food mafia" who were taking advantage of market liberalization to throttle supplies and jack up prices.
"Because the market isn't perfect, it's difficult for the state to control food prices and supplies," said Viva, a National Mandate Party (PAN) lawmaker.
"The food mafia don't care about empowering farmers or contributing to food security. They're only concerned about making a profit and perhaps have vested political interests too."
He said the new law, passed last Thursday to replace the 1996 Food Law, would also address the perennial issue of local farmers and producers being priced out by cheap imports of meat, fruit and other food commodities.
"Let's not allow the importers to manipulate the prices. If that happens, the state will have failed to protect the farmers," he said.
"The new law stipulates punishments for such importers, ranging from the revocation of their licenses to a maximum prison sentence of eight years and fines of up to Rp 100 billion [$10.4 million]. These must be enforced properly."
Viva also pointed out that the law called for the establishment of an independent body, the National Food Institute (LPN), which would be answerable directly to the president.
"If the administration doesn't immediately issue a presidential decree establishing this body, then it will be seen as not serious about food security," he warned. "Indeed, the law gives the government up to three years to do this, but the sooner the better."
Herman Khaeron, chairman of the House Commission IV special committee that deliberated the new legislation, stressed that the LPN would play a critical role in determining the influx of food imports.
The idea, he said, was to make the option of importing food a sort of last resort to fulfill domestic demand or in the event that a particular food commodity is not produced in Indonesia.
"The LPN will have the authority to give recommendations on the actual food demand, while the Trade Ministry will still be in charge of the technical details of importing food," Herman said.
This, he went on, would allow the government to develop a comprehensive database of food stocks, so that it would be able to take measures to address short- and long-term food shortages.
Not enough farmland
Stakeholders have acknowledged that the new law is ultimately geared toward ensuring food sovereignty, but point out several apparent weaknesses in the legislation.
Muhammad Nurdin, chairman of the Indonesian Farmers Alliance (API), argued that empowering local farmers was the main path to reaching that goal, but the law fell short on that count. He said there were no provisions on making it easier for smallholders to get loans, for instance, or to expand their farms.
Both those points, Nurdin said, urgently needed to be addressed or else productivity would decline and the country would face severe food shortages before 2030.
"Indonesia has around 14 million farmers working a total of 12 million hectares of farmland, and this simply isn't enough," he said.
"If the country's population keeps growing at its current rate, we won't have enough food to feed everyone in 15 or 20 years' time. The government needs to establish new tracts of farmland, but the Food Law doesn't state this explicitly."
Drajat Wibowo, an economist from the Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB), agreed that Indonesia needed to do much more to achieve food self-sufficiency, particularly in the country's main staple of rice, a large portion of which still has to be imported to keep up with demand.
"It's high time for the Agriculture Ministry to re-evaluate the policies of its predecessor, the Agriculture Department under the New Order regime," he said, referring to the administration of former president Suharto.
"Leaving aside its objectionable politics, that administration had an ambitious blueprint for expanding rice paddies, improving irrigation networks, developing advanced strains of rice and so on. Every three months, in fact, its researchers would come out with a new and improved strain of rice."
The revised Food Law has also not gone down well with rights activists, who contend that the lack of explicit provisions on agrarian reform leaves smallholder farmers and fishermen at a considerable disadvantage to major food producers and importers.
Gunawan, chairman of the Indonesian Human Rights Committee for Social Justice (IHCS), pointed out that Article 17 of the law classified all food producers, big and small alike, as eligible for government protection and empowerment efforts.
Article 18, meanwhile, calls for the government to phase out policies seen as impacting the producers' competitiveness.
The problem, Gunawan said, was that neither article distinguished between large food-producing companies, who were already at a competitive advantage because of economies of scale and established logistics and supply chain networks, from small-scale farmers and fishermen who were often forced to sell their products at low prices to brokers because they had limited access to markets.
"It's important that this distinction is made," he said. "That way the government will have a clearer idea of who actually needs to be protected and empowered, and conversely who needs to be restricted."
He also argued that in cases across the country, large producers were known to take over smallholders' land, divert their water resources and otherwise make it harder for them to farm. "These big companies also manipulate food prices, so the law needs to be clear that it's siding with the small farmers and fishermen."
Sticking it to the man
Officials, though, are defiant that the new law checks all the right boxes, and tout the bonus move of sticking it to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which previously criticized Indonesia's policy of food self-sufficiency. The group said in a report earlier this year that the policy starves poor consumers, including millions of farmers, who are net buyers of food.
The OECD, which includes developed nations as its members, suggested that Indonesia open its domestic food market to international trade and move away from its self-sufficiency objectives.
The report said the government's policy restricting imports to increase returns to farmers had actually led to a rise in food prices for poor consumers.
Ahmad Suryana, head of food security at the Agriculture Ministry, said the OECD recommendation was not just wrong for Indonesia, but for the whole world.
"The FAO [UN Food and Agricultural Organization] recommends that all countries strengthen their domestic food production, so boosting imports isn't a good solution," he said.
He argued that the new law was designed to do precisely this, thereby shielding Indonesia from food crises in the future. "The Food Law is also our answer to the criticism that Indonesia hasn't adopted the OECD's recommendations," Ahmad added.
House Commission IV chairman Muhammad Romahurmuziy also said the OECD was mistaken on the issue and that the new law would prove that. "Through this law we are pushing for increased domestic food production as well as diversification of food crops and putting in place quality standards," he said.
By empowering local producers and making imports a solution of last resort, said the United Development Party (PPP) politician, Indonesia is ending its reliance on foreign food producers.
[Additional reporting from Antara.]