Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 10.2 Agricultural households in Indonesia, 1993 and 2003
Source: Agricultural census of BPS, 1993 and 2003
Land reform, of course, speaks to a rural future where wealth creation (or at
least poverty alleviation) is fundamentally linked to access to this most basic re-
source. The significance of land to alleviating poverty, however, is contested by re-
searh highlighting the growth of of-farm rural incomes and rural-urban migration
(Rigg, 2006). Even in the outer islands of Indonesia, where land is relatively abund-
ant, access to land is sought primarily to grow commercially-oriented crops suh as
coffee, cocoa, palm oil and pepper. In contrast, the SPI vision of food sovereignty
stresses the need for land ownership, localized food self-sufficiency and movement
away from export-oriented agriculture.
Scalar questions of food security in Indonesia
Indonesia underwent a massive political shift towards decentralization following the
passing of Regional Autonomy Laws in 1999. The implementation of regionalized
food security policy in Indonesia that resulted from these laws brings a number of
common assumptions about food self-sufficiency and food security into sharp focus.
If food self-sufficiency is a broadly-accepted policy goal, as it continues to be in In-
donesia, what is the appropriate scale at whih a geographical region should be self-
suicient in a tradeable commodity suh as rice or corn? SPI argues for local self-
sufficiency, while the DKP's accounting is done at a national scale. It can be argued
that by even concentrating on the widely-accepted national scale, we would already
be restricting the potential efficiency gains from international trade. However, with
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