Made Arya Kencana, Nusa Dua – Indonesia's food resilience is considered so weak that it could put the people in jeopardy unless the government immediately took measures to increase food production and curb imports.
Siswono Yudo Husodo, chief advisor to the Indonesian Farmers Association (HKTI), cited the example of one staple ingredient.
"Seventy-five percent of soy beans for tempeh and tofu, which are the main sources of protein for most of our people, are imported," Siswono said at the 5th Asiahorcs (Head of Research Councils in Asia) in Nusa Dua, Bali, on Wednesday.
Unhealthy diet
Siswono said Indonesians consume 6 kilograms of eggs on average per person per year, which works out about two eggs per week. Malaysians, for example, consume 41 kg of eggs per person per year.
As for meat, Indonesians consume 7 kg on average per person per year, compared to the Chinese who consume 43 kg per year.
Indonesia, a country blessed with so much fish from its seas, rivers and lakes, only consumes 26 kg of fish a year – less than half that consumed by another island nation, Japan. There, people get through an average of 60 kg of fish annually.
Indonesians also lags behind when it comes to milk. People consume less than 13 liters a year, far behind India where they guzzle approximately 60 liters every 12 months.
Poverty has been blamed for such low figures. "If their consumption is not improved, Indonesians will in one generation become smaller than Malaysians and less intelligent," Siswono warned.
He said the government has no choice but to boost food production through technology, adding that Indonesia was still using the local rice seeds that could only produce 5.5 tons per hectare while China has moved onto GMO (genetically modified organism) that can produce up to 11 tons of rice per hectare; more than double Indonesia's output.
As for soy beans, Indonesia is also still using local seeds, which could only produce 2 tons per hectare. "In the United States, GMO soybean seeds produce 6-8 tons of soybeans per hectare," Siswono said.
Bogie Soedjatmiko Eko Tjahjono of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) said the institute has developed several methods to boost food production on several plots of land.
"For rice, we managed to produce 13 tons of dry grain per hectare. It was also the same for soybeans and we harvested 3.5 tons per hectare," Bogie said. He expressed his disappointment with the slow application of LIPI's studies on the community by the bureaucracy.
"All this time we had to go through the Agriculture Ministry and the bureaucracy is so slow. Our solution was to go straight to provincial administrations and asked them to provide land," Bogie said.
LIPI is also not given a special budget to implement the results of its studies and as such it didn't have a direct access to the people to convey the results of the researches.
"We were even reprimanded and reminded to just carry out our job as the researcher. But at parliament we are the one who get the heat because they ask us where the results are," Bogie said.
In the future, he hoped there would be some kind of cooperation between the researchers and policymakers so that the research results could be implemented.
"Such weakness also happens when private companies showed interest in the results of our researches but are impeded by the bureaucracy. There are also no clear regulations regarding royalties," Bogie lamented.
Indonesia's food independence
Efforts to boost food supplies do not necessarily rely on land owned by farmers but also on innovations in creating new land or land owned by companies to plant crops to support the country's food resilience program.
Ilyas Natsir, head of agriculture office in Berau, East Kalimantan, said that there were several plots of land available from plantation and mining companies and holders of forest land concessions, such as state-owned Inhutani, that could be used. "We're trying to coordinate with them to make good use of their land," Ilyas said.
He said Inhutani's vacant land could be used to plant certain crops. "This is what we'll try to explain to them and we hope to get a positive response from the company's management," Ilyas said.
Agricultural subsidies
Emerging countries now tend to increase subsidies for farmers. China, for instance, provides up to $164 million for its farmers by offering subsidized gas to produce fertilizers and for trains that would transport the fertilizers and giving a 30 percent discount for 175 types of agriculture machinery.
India offered a total of $12.1 billion in subsidies for its farmers. "Subsidies for fertilizers in 2013-2014 is about $17.8 billion," Fertilizer Association of India (FAI) director general Satish Chander said in Bali.
Not only China and India, which have large populations, emerging countries such as Malaysia, the Philippines, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal, still offer subsidies. "Subsidies for fertilizers in emerging countries tend to increase," IFA vice president for South Asia Rakesh Kapur said.
IFA director general Charlotte Hebebrand said subsidies for the agricultural sector in several countries were inevitable in order to help farmers have easier access to fertilizers and help improve their income.
"Many farmers in many countries are poor and have small plots of land and thus need help in financial access to obtain fertilizers," she said.
But she added that subsidies could make farmers become dependant on cheap fertilizers or handouts and therefore the subsidies needed to be removed gradually.
Compared to China and India, Indonesia only allocated about $2 billion to subsidize fertilizers.
Data from Pupuk Indonesia Holding Company (PIHC) showed that the government only gave a 5 percent subsidy in this year's state budget. The government's biggest subsidies are allocated for energy (61 percent) and electricity (26 percent).
"But with only a 5 percent subsidy, we could reduce Indonesia's dependence on imported food. That's because with the right fertilizers, we could increase crop production," PIHC president director Arifin Tasrif said.
Data from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in 2012 showed that the productivity of rice fields in Indonesia reached 5.1 tons per hectare on average, higher than land productivity in India, which can only yield an average 3.6 tons per hectare.
Non-productive land
However, Indonesia's land productivity is still lower compared to China's, which reaches 6.7 tons per hectare.
Sumiter Broca, an FAO official for Asia-Pacific, predicted slower global agriculture output growth until 2050 and pointed out that it was important for Indonesia to strengthen its food resilience.
Broca suggested Indonesia needed to build infrastructure and boost research in the sector as well as improve the nutrition of its soils with the right type of fertilizers in order to increase agricultural production.
Deputy Agriculture Minister Rusman Heriawan said the government was planning to allocate Rp 18 billion ($1.5 million) in subsidies for fertilizers next year, the same as in 2013.
With the same amount of subsidies, Rusman expected the volume of subsidized fertilizer to drop due to price increases on raw materials and rupiah depreciation.
"2014 is the year of politics with legislative and presidential elections occupying the minds of politicians and their parties. It would be uncomfortable for any political party to see the volume of subsidized fertilizer to go down," he said.
For this reason, he suggested that it would be better for the government to increase the budget for the subsidies through the revised state budget even if it means that the government's debts to the state-owned fertilizer producer increases.