Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
be less concern for running the economy efficiently than there was in the early
days of the Suharto regime, when technocrats were granted unparalleled au-
thority by the military to set basic economic policy. Third, the franchising con-
cept, which turned important local management issues over to local authorities
but which was enforced by central discipline, is no longer workable in an era
of political decentralization and democratization. Finally, there is no Green
Revolution on the horizon and “getting agriculture moving” will be difficult in
the face of stagnant technology. The combined impact of these factors has ef-
fectively undermined the coalition favoring economic growth as the way to re-
duce poverty, and hence the long-run political reliance on the economy to pro-
vide food security.
Rebuilding the economic growth coalition is likely to take a long time, as
it will depend on the underlying conditions of economic governance—political
stability, rule of law, control of corruption, and so on—that have been moving
in the wrong direction until December 2006. Probably the best that can be
done in the short run—the next 3-5 years—is to minimize policy damage to the
interests of the poor while trying to improve the effectiveness of the programs
transferring resources directly to the poor. The government should get high
marks for moving so quickly to bring rice imports into the country in early 2007,
despite overwhelming political opposition to such a move even as late as No-
vember 2006. But this is not a coherent policy for food security.
In the long run, the only way to sustain food security is through pro-poor
economic growth. No country has been able to generate such growth decade af-
ter decade without reasonably open engagement in the world economy. Rice
has lost much of its significance to the Indonesian macroeconomy, but the poor
still rely on stable access to rice in rural and urban markets. Keeping those mar-
kets stable and accessible will be far easier and cheaper if Indonesia's rice econ-
omy also participates openly in world markets.
References
Arifin, B. 2001.
Spektrum Kebijakan Pertanian Indonesia: Telaah Struktur, Kasus dan
Alternatif Strategi
[Policy spectrum of Indonesian agriculture: Studies on struc-
ture, cases and alternative strategy]. Jakarta: PT Erlangga (in Bahasa).
———. 2004.
Analysis Ekonomi Pertanian Indonesia
[Analyses of the agricultural
economy in Indonesia]. Jakarta: Penerbit Buku Kompas.
Arifin, B., R. Oktaviani, and E. S. Hartati. 2002. Antiklimaks Kebijakan Impor Beras
untuk Ketahanan Pangan (Anti-climax of rice import policy for food security).
Quarterly Review of the Indonesian Economy
5 (1): 45-58.
Arifin, B., A. Munir, E. S. Hartati, and D. J. Rachbini. 2001.
Food security and markets
in Indonesia: State-private interaction in rice trade.
Manila and Kuala Lumpur:
MODE and Southeast Asia Council for Food Security and Fair Trade.
BPS (
Badan Pusat Statistik
[Central Agency of Statistics]). 2002.
Results of national
socio-economic survey: Consumption module, 1999
-
2002.
Jakarta: BPS.
