Farmers dry rice stalks during the harvest at Jatiluwih village in Tabanan, Bali, on June 18, 2024. - Photo: Antara
JAKARTA: Indonesians are eating too much rice to the point that nationwide production keeps falling short of demand.
Many have proposed a diversification of local dietary habits, but rice consumption is deeply rooted in Indonesian culture, and switching to alternatives alone would not address structural problems in domestic farming.
“[I have always] eaten rice ever since I was little, and until now, from breakfast to dinner, there must be rice [in the meal],” says Azura Yumna, a 22-year-old reporter in Jakarta.
Going without the white grain for any of three meals a day would leave him feeling “lacklustre,” Azura said when speaking to The Jakarta Post on Friday (June 28).
Many if not most Indonesians feel the same way about rice, which is typically processed into the white form with the bran removed, and along with it some nutritional benefits.
The commodity has been the archipelago’s main staple for as long as anyone can remember.
Nevertheless, Statistics Indonesia (BPS) data from February show that Indonesians do eat less rice today than some years ago, as per-capita consumption dropped from 1.7kg a week in 2007 to 1.5kg in 2023.
Khudori, an agriculture expert with the Indonesian Political Economy Association (AEPI), pointed out that, despite decreasing per-capita consumption, aggregate consumption kept growing along with the country’s population, leaving the country dependent on imports to meet nationwide demand.
Khudori blamed this on “structural problems” in domestic agriculture that would require years to sort out.
A lack of available land amid the conversion of large swaths to other functions was among the biggest problems blighting rice production, he told the Post on Thursday.
Others, according to Khudori, are irrigation infrastructure that lack last-mile solutions, government programmes that have lost their vigor in the long lines of bureaucracy and technology that is far behind the curve.
Resolving these issues, Khudori said, would require years of hard work, but political leaders might lack the necessary motivation, as they would not get to take credit for improvements materializing only after their tenure.
“This is the consequence of the political system we choose, the circulation of power taking place every five years,” said Khudori.
Shifting away from reliance on rice by mainstreaming an alternative carbohydrate staple may not be a real solution, Khudori noted, because in the case of bread, for instance, a lack of wheat production in the country would only leave Indonesia even more dependent on imports.
For a substitute to stand up to rice, it would need to be at least comparable in terms of affordability, availability and nutritional value, Khudori explained.
The head of the National Food Agency (Bapanas), Arief Prasetyo Adi, told the Post on Thursday that the government had no dedicated program in place to diversify consumption, but if it were to push for alternative stables, Arief suggested popularising food products with local roots in regional history, such as papeda in Papua.
Papeda is a traditional source of carbohydrate for Papuans and Moluccans that is made from sago starch, which is extracted from the sago palm tree and processed into a sticky paste served in a variety of ways.
Sutarto Alimoeso, chairman of the Association of Indonesian Rice Mills and Rice Entrepreneurs (Perpadi), said any food diversification could start at the farmer’s level.
He recommended that farmers shift to other crops every once in a while to replenish their land with nutrients, which should improve their rice crops once they shift back.
The problems in Indonesian agriculture had actually been mapped out well, and the only thing hindering them from being solved was a lack of “political will”, Sutarto said.
Echoing what both Sutarto and Khudori said, Karyawan “Wawan” Gunarso, president director of Jakarta-owned PT Food Station Tjipinang, said the problems in Indonesian rice production were land availability, crop cultivation, productivity and a lack of technical counselling for farmers.
“The efforts [to improve production] must be based on the real conditions, real challenges on the ground,” Wawan told the Post on Thursday, while also encouraging dietary diversification to improve food security.
Bapanas’ Arief projected that the government might end up needing to import as much as 5 million tonnes of rice this year, which would be a record amount.
However, only 3.6 million tonnes worth of quotas have been issued so far. - The Jakarta Post/ANN
