Imports of Rice, Evidence of Farmers' Welfare has More Worse

By : Ridwan And Aldo Bella Putra | Saturday, January 13 2018 - 23:30 IWST

Petani Desa Linonggasai Panen (Dok. Industry.co.id)

INDUSTRY.co.id - Jakarta - The government through the Ministry of Trade (Kemendag) has decided to open taps on rice imports.

Trade Minister Enggartiasto Lukita said it would open a special rice import of 500 thousand tons. The rice is scheduled to start in late January 2018.

Bhima Yudhistira, Bhima Yudhistira of Economy Institute for Economic and Finance Institute (Indef), said that the opportunity to open imported faucets proves that the government's data on rice surplus is not credible.

"There are issues of coordination miss also in internal Government between the Minister of Agriculture and Bulog," said Bhima when contacted INDUSTRY.co.id in Jakarta, Saturday (13/1/2018).

He added, actually the symptoms of rising rice prices have been seen since November but less preparation. The impact is that rice imports will certainly be detrimental to farmers.

"Now, in some areas, planting season is starting, but the market will be imported rice, where there are farmers who want to plant rice?" The price of rice in the next 3 months must fall when farmers’ harvest," he said.

In fact, he continued, in March the predicted rice production Kementan reach its peak.

In March 2018 rice production is projected to increase by 11.9 million tons of GKG, with rice availability of 7.47 million tons and consumption of 2.5 million tons. This means a surplus of 4,971 tons.

Of these, consist of 222,186 hectares of land in West Java, Central Java 335,723 hectares, East Java 237,626 hectares and other provinces of 842,856 hectares with a total harvested area of 1,638,391 hectares.

According to him, the government needs to see that the exchange rate of farmers in the last 1 year can be said stagnant because it is in the range 101-103.

While real wages of real laborers continue to fall indicates that the rate of inflation is higher than the increase in income received by farm workers.

"This indicator of the welfare of farmers has worsened, especially imported rice," he concluded.