Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
ever-decreasing scale, there are fewer real links between self-sufficiency and food se-
curity, until arguments apparently become nonsensical at the household level in the
modern economy, where most food- secure urban households are unlikely to seri-
ously consider producing their own food.
The fundamental realignment of the economic and political relationships
between Jakarta and the regions, triggered by regional autonomy, helped flavour
the direction of a 2002 Government Regulation on Food Security (prepared as the
implementing regulation for an earlier 1996 National Food Law). This government
regulation provides the framework within whih local governments are expected to
contribute to national food security objectives through the establishment of district-
based Food Security Councils. The effectiveness of District Food Security Coun-
cils under regional autonomy has been highly varied, with most districts tending
to engage in ineffectual, and costly, food staple procurement and storage activities.
Another example of the localization of food security efforts in recent years has been
a flagship national programme of the Ministry of Agriculture, the Desa Mandiri Pan-
gan (or Self-suicient Food Villages) through whih individual villages are encour-
aged to strive for food self-sufficiency.
Decentralization of food security strategies through these policies has helped ad-
dress the long-standing policy bias towards rice at the expense of other food crops.
For many communities in eastern Indonesia, rice has never even been a staple food
crop. For centuries, the sago palm has been dominant in parts of Sulawesi, the
Maluku islands and coastal Papua; sweet potato, taro and yams have been integ-
rated within highland agricultural systems of Papua possibly for millennia; and corn
has been central to food security in parts of Nusa Tenggara since it was introduced
from the New World. Some of these regions perceived a kind of 'rice imperialism'
during the New Order regime, when consumption of these alternative foods was ex-
plicitly linked with primitivism and underdevelopment — despite being apparently
well-adapted ecologically. This 'imperialism' manifested itself through government
supports targeting rice production only, as well as through the longstanding, but
controversial, transmigration policy of setling Javanese and Balinese rice farmers
in the outer islands with the explicit aim of introducing 'superior' agricultural teh-
niques. It also manifested itself culturally through the atitudes of government oi-
cials and mainstream media's reification of rice as a symbol of cultural sophistica-
tion. Since reformasi, however, the central government has recognized the benefits
of encouraging production of alternatives to rice in these regions. Staple food diver-
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