Every time we face a challenge to food security, such as a high risk of a steep increase in the price of rice, the government proclaims an urgent need to diversify from our main staple into other products, such as cassava, maize or other products that can be cultivated by horticulture throughout the country.
The government warned of the dangers of being too dependent on rice when prices skyrocketed in late 2010 and early 2011, reiterating the need for redesigning our concept of food security, which has thus far wrongly focused on ensuring an adequate supply of rice at an affordable price to all people at all time.
However, these messages died as soon as rice prices stabilized, and it was again business as usual.
No wonder. Our rice consumption growth is the highest in the region. Our annual per capita rice consumption tops 140 kilograms — more than double that of Thailand, Malaysia, China or Japan and nearly three times the global average.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono revisited the issue at the Food Security Summit here on Tuesday, warning of continued problems if we depend too heavily on rice as a national food staple.
It is impossible for a vast archipelago of 238 million people that consume more than 33 million tons of milled rice a year to achieve rice self-sufficiency.
Consumption is steady all year long while rice is harvested only twice a year in Java and about once a year on other islands that lack adequate irrigation networks. Last year, for example, we imported 2.75 million tons of rice.
We should realize that the era of cheap food has ended and that our demand for food will continue to increase due to population growth.
As long as we define food security as the availability of an adequate supply of rice we will remain highly vulnerable to food crises, especially since the international rice market is quite small with just a few large exporters, such as Thailand, Vietnam and Japan.
Food security should be approached from both the supply and demand sides and be made a broad-based agricultural development program with an ultimate objective of increasing rural household income for both on- and off-farm activities.
The government has promised tax-holiday incentives to investors to develop food estates outside Java, notably in Papua, where several big business groups from Jakarta have been planning to open large rice and sugarcane plantations.
However, these incentives will be meaningless if the investors themselves have to put up the capital for building the basic infrastructure since such large capital costs would make their commodities uncompetitive on the domestic and international markets.
Food estates in Papua will also be commercially unviable if connectivity between that island and other islands remains abysmal. In fact poor infrastructure has discouraged food production, notably of highly perishable vegetables and fruits, as surplus produce in one regency has sometimes to be sold at throw-away prices while other districts even on the same island suffer from severe food shortages.
The government should increase its investment in developing rural infrastructure as roads and sea transportation and agriculture infrastructure such as research stations and farm technical extension services to encourage private investment in food crop development.