BASIC NEEDS - Food Supply Chains to be Trimmed Immediately

An inter-ministerial meeting on national food policies has produced agreement on the need to shorten food supply chains from nine links to only three

The coordination meeting by four ministers on Friday (10/6/2016) at the office of the Ministry of Agriculture was attended by Minister of Agriculture Amran Sulaiman, Minister of Trade Thomas Lembong, Minister of Industry Saleh Husin, and Minister of Cooperatives and Small and Medium Businesses AA Gede Ngurah Puspayoga.

Amran disclosed that the national food coordination meeting was held in an effort to stabilize food prices in the long term, not just to mitigate price fluctuation during the fasting month of Ramadhan and Lebaran. The ministers agreed on the establishment of an inter-ministerial team to work on the creation of a new and efficient market structure.

"The team will consist of members who are complete [in terms of their expertise], comprehensive and work all the time with the aim of shortening food supply chains," Amran said. The idea of cutting of the food supply chains is to maintain food commodity prices at the farmers' level to give them the profits, along with businesspeople, and to make consumers happy.

Thomas Lembong said, there was inter-ministerial agreement that the issue of long supply chains had to be tacked from upstream production all the way to downstream distribution. "From end to end. A solution that only cuts the distribution chain but neglects other [aspects] will be useless. All the obstacles need to be settled at once," he said.

Indonesian Employers Association Chairman Anton J Supit said the problem of long food supply chains was no different from the widespread appearance of loan sharks and moneylenders in villages. When the government failed to show its presence at the village level by providing easily accessible capital, farmers would turn to loan sharks.

Separately, National Industrial Economy Committee (KEIN) Chairman Soetrisno Bachir said KEIN was in the process of formulating a road map until 2045 for Indonesian self-reliance in fisheries and agriculture. "Without a road map, ministries will only blame each other," he said. 

source: Kompas, Saturday, June 11, 2016