Many Indonesian Farmers Get Debt And Live In Poverty, Indef Reveals The Reason

Farmers (Photo: dock. Antara)

JAKARTA - Executive Director of the Institute for Development of Economics and Finance (Indef) Esther Sri Astuti said that currently farmers in Indonesia are trapped in a debt circle that makes their lives still alive under welfare.

"According to my observations, for five years the successful farmers are farmers who have other livelihoods or other incomes. So, if he is only purely a farmer, yes, he is still poor," Esther said in a discussion forum entitled "The Arrah of Indonesian Food Policy after the 2024 General Election" in Jakarta, quoted on Saturday, February 10.

Esther said that Indonesian farmers can only earn income during the harvest season. Meanwhile, to meet their daily needs during the planting season, they must apply for debts to creditors in the village.

However, when the harvest season arrives, these farmers must pay off their debts and interest, if they bloom, to creditors. This condition causes farmers in Indonesia not to have income that can be saved to survive during the planting season, so they must return to debt.

"Why are farmers still poor because they only have income at harvest, their daily lives are from debt, so they don't have daily income, they only owe from the stall. So, how do you want to be rich," he said.

According to Esther, farmers cannot save their harvest money because the amount received is not more.

Because apart from fulfilling their living expenses, they also have to pay off their debts to creditors, both those borrowed from their neighbors and dependents from KUR that were disbursed previously.

"A farmer who can be sustainable who has other income, for example from a motorcycle taxi driver, then from an employee. So, he can meet the daily needs of the motorcycle taxi, later when he harvests he can save and live. But if it's just a farmer, it's according to observation, say, he doesn't have savings because he pays debts," said Esther.

Furthermore, Esther assessed that this condition would have a negative impact on the regeneration of farmers in Indonesia. This can be seen from now on when the profession as a civil servant and private employee is recommended by parents who are farmers to their children.

"Why should the parents of their children farmers not become farmers. So, there is a problem of farmer regeneration as well, unlike in the Netherlands, that's where farmers are dashing and cool. They have the same income as government employees," he concluded.