Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
ferred to as
Reformasi)
has, instead, served to strengthen the political case for food
protectionism. Indeed, subsequent administrations have responded to nationalist
political demands for domestic food production by maintaining various agricultur-
al subsidies and extending a protectionist trade policy. Food self-sufficiency, and the
specific scale at whih this should be ahieved, continue to be highly politically con-
tested policy goals in Indonesia; goals informed by the discursive practices of various
interest groups both within and outside of the arhipelagic state.
his hapter argues that, despite some initiatives to improve food accessibility
over the last decade, Indonesian policy continues to conflate food security with rice
self-sufficiency, often to the detriment of food-insecure households. As the evolving
nature of the Indonesian economy moves the country further away from being
a predominately agrarian nation, differing visions of food security are now being
brought into sharp contrast. Despite insistent claims that rice protectionism actu-
ally increases poverty (suh as those expressed by Warr (2005)), a radical political
departure from current policies is unlikely in the foreseeable future. Complicating
food security policy options further, the relative resilience of the Indonesian food
system during the 2008 global food crisis (primarily due to strong domestic supply)
has provided grist for the mill for advocates of enhanced food protectionism in the
country.
Food insecurity in Indonesia
In 2008, the National Food Security Agency (Dewan Ketahanan Pangan (DKP)) clas-
sified approximately 87 million (36 per cent) of Indonesia's 240 million people as
food-insecure, of whih 25 million were severely food-insecure (Martianto, 2009).
Clearly, food security remains a daily hallenge for Indonesia and many of its people.
The United Nations Millennium Development Goals include a target to halve the
proportion of people suffering from hunger globally by 2015 (from 1990 levels). In In-
donesia, the indicators used to measure progress towards this goal are the percentage
of hildren under ive sufering from severe malnutrition (severely underweight) and
undernourishment (moderately underweight). In 1989, 37.5 per cent of Indonesian
hildren were suffering from severe malnutrition and undernourishment (Bappenas,
2007). While this had decreased to 26.4 per cent in 2002, it had risen again slightly to
28.17 per cent in 2005, suggesting that Indonesia is unlikely to meet its target of 18.7
per cent by 2015 (Bappenas, 2007). Neither is undernourishment solely a concern for
infants in Indonesia. According to the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organ-
