Faisal Basri: Indonesia's Food Security Lost To China, Malaysia, Thailand, And Vietnam

JAKARTA - Senior economist at the Institute for Development of Economics and Finance (Indef), Faisal Basri, has aired the government's plan to import 1 million tons of rice. This is because Indonesia is a large and very fertile country.

"It is ironic that a country like Indonesia which is very fertile has tremendous biodiversity. We are the biggest importer in the world," said Faisal Basri in a virtual discussion, Monday, March 22.

In a comparative perspective, said Faisal, food security based on the 2020 Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI), Indonesia occupies a position at number 65 out of 112 countries. Admittedly, Indonesia is lower than Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, China, but slightly better than Cambodia and the Philippines, as well as South Africa.

However, he said, in 2020, Indonesia fell again, retreating to its position in 2018 from 62 to 65. Even so, according to Faisal, this position is still good enough for Indonesia.

"But okay. In terms of our affordability, the score is pretty good, the score is 73.5. Our availability is also relatively good. The ranking is more than the total, which is 48 with a score of 64.7," he explained.

Faisal said rice prices in the country are relatively stable compared to international rice prices. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a possible threat to the world food sector exists. Countries need a lot of food, while the supply is like that, causing prices to increase.

"Primarily the prices of Vietnam, Thailand too. Indonesia is not affected by this phenomenon. Again as evidence of Indonesia's increasing availability," he said.

According to Faisal, what you have to pay attention to is quality and safety. Because Indonesia is at number 85 out of 113 countries with a score below 50. Then, natural source and resilience is number 109 out of 113. Even in 2019 Indonesia is at the bottom, number 113 out of 113 countries with a score of only 34.1.

"Agriculture, mainly rice, is very dependent on environmentally friendly policies, green economy policies that need an umbrella for environmentally friendly agriculture and other sectors that also support the friendliness of agriculture," he said.

Faisal said for rice, there is a tendency for production to continue to rise, even though the increase is sloping. However, consumption continues to fall. Due to the government's efforts to diversify non-rice food that is healthier, but the price is higher.

"The decline in consumption is also caused by the development of the middle class so that there is no longer a lot of food consumption or consumption of rice is relatively small. This is already a trend. So this is momentum so that we can brazen to make it stronger," he said.

In addition, Faisal reminded the government not to repeat mistakes in the past years, to be precise in 2018. At that time, Indonesia imported 4 million tons of rice.

"Let's not repeat the mistakes of 2018, we imported 4 million tons of rice, but 2 million tonnes were successfully thwarted and around 1.2 million tonnes entered, this is chaotic and should not happen again," he said.

According to Faisal, now Indonesia has a better estimation. Thus, it has more solid data. Therefore, mistakes of the past years should not be repeated.

"Because at least we can save USD 1 billion. We can use this to modernize the agricultural sector so that our productivity will increase. So, in the future the key is to increase productivity," he said.

Faisal assessed that if Indonesia had a food agency, chances are there would not be an import problem like this. Experience shows that in the past few years, Indonesia imports rice at harvest times and imports a little during times of famine.

"Why there is a pattern like this I really don't know. And it will repeat itself, if we don't scream now," he said.