Keeping Watch Over Famine
In future, the agriculture sector should be used as the foundation of a civilization that can urge its citizens to love local B2SA food products above imported foods. Let us hope!
Ahead of World Food Day, which falls on 16 Oct. 2022, the United Nations has reminded the world about the threat of a global food crisis.
During the 77th UN General Assembly held at the end of September 2022, the world body warned that Russia's invasion of Ukraine had caused a global fertilizer crisis that would have an impact on food availability. At least 2 billion people in the world, most of who live in Asia, were threatened by a potential famine.
Various aspects related to the food deficit issue have burdened all countries in the world. The impact is worse in some countries. Around 200 million people in 53 countries are now experiencing acute hunger. Around 26 million children are at risk of malnutrition, and a portion of the Indonesian population is suffering from malnutrition. It is suspected that Indonesia’s downward trend in the prevalence of tengkes (stunting) will slow after reaching 24 percent.
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The food crisis and malnutrition are global problems that need to be monitored and require sustainable solutions. Indonesia's Group of 20 presidency has made food deficit the main topic of the G20 Bali Summit in November, given the recent increases in the food prices.
The lives of local farmers, who have become increasingly poorer, have also had an impact on young people from the millennial generation who are no longer interested in pursuing jobs in the agricultural sector.
The logical consequence is that the threat of hunger is no longer confined to African countries, such as Somalia, Nigeria, South Sudan and Yemen, whose peoples experienced a famine five years ago. Without the help of foreign countries that care about their plight, around 20 million people are in danger of dying from hunger.
No impact from scientific, technological developments
The threat of famine reminds us that developments in agricultural science and technology have not had a significant impact on strengthening global food security. Food insecurity still often occurs in poor countries, though developed countries have an abundance of food supplies. Traditional agriculture is still struggling with local technologies to produce food.
In fact, Indonesian farmers often experience crop failures due to extreme weather, which have encouraged many to leave the agriculture sector after Idul Fitri each year and relocate to urban areas to earn a living and have a better economic life.
Food insecurity still often occurs in poor countries, though developed countries have an abundance of food supplies.
The government has worked hard to tackle hunger and reduce the number of poor people. However, this human tragedy still lingers around us. The famine in Kuyawage district of Lanny Jaya regency, Papua province, in the middle of this year was a sign that Indonesia, an agrarian country, is still experiencing food crises.
This year's food crisis has left at least four people dead and affected hundreds of others. The famine has evoked memories of what happened in mid-2015, when people in the three Papuan regencies of Lanny Jaya, Puncak Jaya and Nduga experienced the threat of starvation for three weeks.
Extreme weather reaching a nighttime air temperature of minus 3 degrees Celsius has damaged root crops, which are staple foods in Papua. Around 10,000 residents faced the threat of starvation and 11 people died because they could not cope with the hailstorms and snow.
People have died from starvation this country, known as the world's granary. Nationwide, no less than 5 million children are unable to sleep well each night due to hunger and malnutrition.
Apart from Papua, the food deficit and nutritional hunger have also occurred in East Nusa Tenggara, East Java, West Java, Yogyakarta Special Region (DIY), North Sumatra, and West Sumatra, as well as other areas. According to the World Bank, the number of poor, near poor, and half-poor people still reaches around 120 million people who make a daily income of just US$2.
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The fact that the number of (extremely) poor people remains high indicates that the government is not yet fully present to overcome this condition by improving access and providing new jobs.
The increase in the prices of a number of foodstuffs has had a domino effect by increasing the number of poor people.
The high increase in food prices has further burdened the lives and livelihoods of the grassroots population. This assumption is in line with the theory of Amartya Sen, the recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economics, who said that hunger occurs not only due to a lack of food, but also because of low access to food as a result of weak buying power. National food availability is not enough to guarantee food sufficiency at the household and individual levels.
The food restrictions that are being increasingly imposed by a number of food commodity exporting countries have made it even more urgent for us to build “food barns” in every village in the country. President Joko Widodo has often pointed out that, in the midst of the global food crisis, it is necessary to continue to take anticipatory steps so that human rights violations do not occur in the nutrition sector.
Diverse and nutritious foods in villages
Famine originates from injustice, poverty and educational backwardness. Human resource quality is also decreasing in rural areas because of the accelerating pace of urbanization. In the end, villages and the agriculture sector have become sources of poverty.
Farmers’ welfare as an outcome of food security is increasingly being neglected. Poor rural residents village and most farm workers must fulfill their food needs by buying food. It is ironic that they live in agricultural centers, but they are not self-sufficient in meeting their food needs.
The government needs to incubate down-to-earth food policies so it can turn villages, from the upstream to the downstream, into “granaries” of diverse and nutritious foods.
After almost a quarter of a century of the reform movement, policies on the people's economy have failed to open the door as widely as possible to boost farmers’ welfare. The reason is that the government has not been serious in developing infrastructure to strengthen sustainable food sovereignty, starting from villages.
To turn Indonesia into the world's food barn by 2045, the Nawacita program, which the Joko Widodo administration has been promoting since 2014 and includes development from marginal areas, must be realized through establishing diverse, nutritious, balanced and safe (B2SA) food barns in the villages. The B2SA food barns provide foods rich in protein, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins and minerals.
After almost a quarter of a century of the reform movement, policies on the people's economy have failed to open the door as widely as possible to boost farmers’ welfare.
The policy reference is clear, namely Presidential Regulation No. 104/2021, which requires allocating a minimum 20 percent or Rp 13.6 trillion from the 2022 village funds for food security (A. Halim Iskandar, 2022). This policy recognizing rural food security combines on-farm, post-harvest and simple primary processes managed by village-owned enterprises or local cooperatives.
Its success can accelerate Indonesia's food sovereignty and hit the brakes on stunting, a current nutrition problem.
Dependence on imports
Indonesia’s nutrition problems are not solely caused by poor food production. The main problem, apart from poverty, which has weakened buying power among the poor people, is consumer bias in choosing, processing and serving foods. Their knowledge about family nutrition is still relatively low, so they need food and nutrition literacy through B2SA villages.
In fact, cases of malnutrition are still often found in various regions, even though their economies have the money to access food. However, their lack of understanding about B2SA foods has led to recurring malnutrition, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.
This issue must be addressed immediately to break up “the iceberg” and save the fetuses, pregnant women and babies within the first 1,000 days of life before they become a lost generation. When food prices move beyond the people's buying power in both urban and rural areas, nutritional adequacy must be ensured (Sibuea, 2022).
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The threat of starvation cannot be solved by simply increasing wages or creating jobs. This nation needs an even greater effort, namely cultural change.
Our increasing dependence on imported food products, for example, is due to the negligence of local administrations that are busier dealing with the political agenda for the regional elections than the politics of the local food techno-agro industry. Community agriculture, which is the engine of rural B2SA food barns, is positioned as an inferior economic enterprise.
In future, the agriculture sector should be used as the foundation of a civilization that can urge its citizens to love local B2SA food products above imported foods. Let us hope!
Posman Sibuea
Posman Sibuea,
Professor of the Agricultural Product Technology Program at Santo Thomas Catholic University (Unika) in Medan; executive member of the PATPI Central Board and member of the Food Experts Working Group at the National Food Agency
This article was translated by Kurniawan Siswo.
