By: Rika Prasetya) *
Food issues cannot be underestimated. Because, as the population grows in size, meeting food needs is often a problem due to insufficient food availability.
Although during the Jokowi Government, there were several parties who considered that Jokowi could not solve the problem of food prices. In fact many people admire President Joko Widodo’s breakthrough in his breakthrough in realizing food sovereignty.
The breakthrough made by the Joko Widodo era in realizing food sovereignty was appreciated by Indonesian House Speaker Bambang Soesatyo. Bambang expressed his admiration for Jokowi’s breakthrough in utilizing swamp and tidal swamps which were used as productive agricultural land to increase national agricultural productivity.
“This proves the presence of a country that systematically recognizes, respects, and fulfills the right to food of its citizens. “President Jokowi’s government has begun to shift the approach from Food security to Food sovereignty,” said Bamsoet.
The politician from the Golkar Party faction was optimistic that the pilot project of the swamp and tidal swamps which had been used as agricultural land by the Ministry of Agriculture in Jejangkit Muara Village, South Kalimantan, would be successful.
On an area of 4000 hectares where 750 thousand of them have been planted with rice, they will be able to support national rice stocks during the famine which usually occurs in December – January due to the completion of rice harvest on the island of Java.
“The swamp and tidal swamps that have not been made so far, now with assistance from the central government will be productive land. Thus it can increase the economic value of the region and the local community, so that we do not just depend on Java’s agricultural land, “Bamsoet said.
Food will be one of the themes in the second presidential debate on February 17, 2019. Bogor Agricultural Institute Institute Administrator Dwi Andreas Sentosa sees candidate number 01 Joko Widodo benefiting.
According to him, Jokowi already has a real performance that can be assessed directly by the community. One of them is in four years bringing Indonesia’s Food security rating up quite significantly from 72 in 2014 to 65 in 2018 out of a total of 113 countries.
The rating of food security is assessed from three components, namely availability, affordability and security. In terms of availability, the government performs its duties well, although it cannot be denied, some of the available food comes from imports.
The imports were carried out because they anticipated that the national warehouse (Bulog) would not be empty. For this reason, temporary imports are needed to fill the shortages in warehouses. Hopefully in the future, all warehouses can be fulfilled by themselves so that it will lead to food self-sufficiency.
Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Darmin Nasution said Indonesia’s food security score continued to improve in the 4 years of Jokowi’s administration.
Based on the release of the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), during the SBY Government Indonesia’s position on food security was in the 5th position of the 7 ASEAN countries evaluated. The Indonesian index at that time was even under the Philippines which was Indonesia’s competitor in the largest group of rice importing countries in the world.
Indonesia’s position on food security is under Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines. Indonesia’s position is only slightly better than Myanmar and Cambodia.
The deterioration of Indonesian Food Security at the time, but the Government of President Jokowi was unanimous in 2017 that Indonesia had full Food Self-Sufficiency.
In the period October 2014 to April 2015, the planting area of rice fields planted by farmers experienced an increase from 8.11 million hectares to 8.54 million hectares. The number of tractors has been distributed more than 20,000 units, thousands of water pumps, combine harvesters and transplants.
Likewise, the addition of new paddy fields area, based on the results of the work evaluation for the period October 2014 to March 2015, in collaboration with the TNI and Farmer Groups, the addition of new paddy fields amounted to 700 thousand hectares. With that number, it is estimated that rice production can reach 3 million tons.
To increase food production, the government will also build 500,000 hectares of Food Estate and implement the downstream agricultural program.
During President Jokowi’s administration, Indonesia’s desire to return to self-sufficiency in food, especially rice, chili, corn and onions will be realized. In the beginning of 2018, Indonesia can revive food self-sufficiency.
The Head of the Public Relations and Public Information Bureau of the Ministry of Agriculture, Agung Hendriadi, revealed that the government’s efforts to realize food self-sufficiency require hard work. All of that gradually began to show positive results and benefits for the people.
Dry Grain Production (GKG) in 2015 penetrated 75.55 million tons. This figure increased 4.66% compared to 2014 which was 70.85 million and in 2016 with a achievement of 79.1 million tons. It was also recorded this year, Indonesia for the first time self-sufficient in rice after 32 years
Good cooperation was also established with the Ministry of Trade together with the Ministry of Trade, the Indonesian National Police (Polri), Ministry of Home Affairs, National Logistics Agency, and business competition supervisory committee (KPPU) in the form of the Food Task Force Team. The Food Task Force Team was formed to oversee food prices and availability, and to enforce the law against the cartel and food mafia.
Seeing this achievement, of course food security in the Jokowi era has added optimism to the agricultural or food industry players in the future.
) * The author is a Contributor to the Indonesian Strategic Information Study Institute (LSISI)