Global Conflict, Climate Change, And Food Estate Mismanagement: Indonesia Faces Food Crisis Threats

Forest land that will be used as agricultural land for the Food Estate project in Sepang, Gunung Mas, Central Kalimantan. (Greenpeace Indonesia)

JAKARTA Indonesia is predicted to experience a food crisis because high demand is not accompanied by adequate supply. According to economic observers, this is not only caused by climate change, but also global conflicts.

Food availability has become an issue that has often attracted public attention, especially in the last two years. In November last year, the Head of the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) Dwikorita Karnawati said the world meteorological organization predicts a global food crisis in 2050. This is due to drought in a number of areas as a result of the increase in geothermal temperatures.

Since the industrial revolution in the 1980s, the earth's temperature has always increased every year. From 2015 to 2022, the average increase reached 3.5 degrees Celsius.

"The impact of the 2050s is predicted to be food shortages due to drought or water shortages that occur in the majority of the world's regions," said Dwikorita in November 2023.

Dwikorita revealed that Indonesia is also one of the countries facing the threat of a food crisis in 2050, although it is still at the middle level. Indonesia will face the challenge of importing food because importing countries will experience a severe food crisis in that year.

"Indonesia is at a middle level, but we will have difficulty importing because the country's food producing sources experience a more severe drought," he explained.

The increase in global temperatures has resulted in uncertain weather conditions. Harvest failure due to extreme weather is increasingly common in Indonesia. In the midst of this situation, people must bear more costs to obtain supplies of carbohydrates, proteins, and fiber. On the other hand, the increase in food prices has never really brought prosperity to farmers.

However, the food crisis is not only caused by extreme weather experienced by Indonesia and various other countries in the world in recent years.

Senior economist Bright Institute, Awalil Rizky explained that the trigger for the food crisis was not only from production, but also regional political conditions that were heating up in several areas. He added that the world's rice supply experienced significant disruptions, while demand remained high.

"The concern about the widespread food crisis in the years to come has led some countries to secure their supplies, including limiting their exports," Awalil said in a webinar titled Common Food Threatening on Tuesday, October 8, 2024.

This protectionism trend has been going on for the past years. Awalil said, countries that are aware of the uncertainty of food conditions tend to change the orientation of domestic resilience. This condition will have an impact on Indonesia, which has a population of 285 million and has the potential to grow.

"So food insecurity will be a much more serious problem," he said.

What is even more surprising, said Awalil, is that this condition has actually been predicted for a long time. The 2015-2019 and 2020-2024 National Medium-Term Development Plan (RPJMN) compiled by President Joko Widodo has actually highlighted this issue, but its implementation is far from expectations.

The Global Food Security Index (GFSI) score or the Global Food Security Index which is the indicator of the success of the RPJMN actually fell. In 2018, this index once reached 63.60 so that the 2020-2024 RPJMN targets a score of 95.24 this year. But what happened was the opposite, since 2019 the figure actually decreased. Instead of approaching the target, the last value in 2022 was lower with a score of 60.2

"The target of the 2024 RPJMN is impossible to achieve," he said.

This situation is exacerbated by the portion of food crops in the agricultural sector which tended to decline during the Jokowi era. In 2014, for example, food crops consisting of rice, corn, sweet potatoes, sweet potatoes, soybeans, peanuts, and green beans reached 24.35 percent of the entire agricultural sector. However, in 2013 the figure fell to 18.02 percent.

On the same occasion, Bright Institute Research Director Muhammad Andri Perdana explained that the decline in the portion of food crops in the agricultural sector was due to a lack of attention from the government. The government is actually more focused on plantations, especially export-oriented palm oil.

"Especially palm oil," said Andri.

The food estate program run by the government since the New Order era until now is considered as a way to overcome the food crisis. However, until now, none of the government's food estate programs are considered successful. Even though this project is part of the National Strategic Project or PSN in 2020.

The location of this project initially included North Sumatra, South Sumatra, Central Kalimantan, and Papua. But over time the project site continued to grow. The food estate project experienced a number of errors in responding to the threat of a food crisis in Indonesia, including developed commodities.

This food estate project is the same as previous projects that focused on several commodities such as rice, corn, and tubers. The types of plants planted in the food estate project are claimed to be not the type commonly consumed by the public.

The second food estate error is the placement of project sites. The government almost always targets forests and land that have high biodiversity, including the Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate project in Merauke, South Papua. The location of this project has a good natural forest cover and peatland. With this project, it is actually forest damaged for agricultural land.

Third, the concept of large-scale farming and industry which only produces food for the supply needs of industrial raw materials rather than for the fulfillment of public food. One of them is the food estate in Gunung Mas, Central Kalimantan, which is managed directly by the company. This project entered the forest area and penetrated trees where orangutan habitats are. Unfortunately, this project seems fruitless after one year of operation.

"Programfood estate has not been able to improve this istuation," concluded Andri.