PP 28/2024 And RPMK Polemics, APTI: Not Control, But Killing Tobacco Farmers

Illustration. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - Farmers in Central Java assess that Government Regulation (PP) Number 28 of 2024 and the Draft Regulation of the Minister of Health (RPMK) which encourages plain cigarette packs without brands are no longer used as control of tobacco products, but as a way to kill tobacco industry and farmers.

Chairman of the Association of Indonesian Tobacco Farmers (APTI) Central Java, Wisnu Brata criticized the policy of the zoning of tobacco products in PP 28/2024 as well as the policy of packaging plain, brandless cigarettes in the RPMK which is considered to have come out of substance to control tobacco products.

"This is a policy whose spirit is to kill the tobacco products industry and the ecosystem in it, including farmers, not controls anymore," he told the media, quoted Monday, October 14.

Wisnu explained that the policy was not in accordance with conditions in Indonesia, where tobacco-producing countries are not like Australian countries that do not have tobacco plantations. Ironically, Australia has become a reference country for the Ministry of Health (Kemenkes) in making these regulations.

"We are different from Australia. Because Australia is not a tobacco producer. For example in America, Japan, several Latin American countries, all of which are producing countries, they will never implement a plain cigarette packaging policy without a brand," he said.

Wisnu was surprised by the Ministry of Health for designing the regulation. The reason, said Wisnu, is that the policy will have a major impact on the tobacco industry ecosystem, especially on the sustainability of farmers.

"For Australia, which is now one of the references for making this RPMK, because they are only a market (not a tobacco product producer). It is different, for example, if wine is made plain packaging, Australia will definitely scream because it is a wine producing country," he added.

This is related to the cigarette industry which is one of the largest contributors to state revenue through excise. Not only that, according to him, the national tobacco industry has opened wide job opportunities for the people of Indonesia.

Moreover, said Wisnu, currently tobacco plants are a growing commodity and the higher the value compared to other commodities. "For example, rice, the price is now falling free. Corn is the same, and with other commodities it is the same. What is surviving now is tobacco," he explained.

Wisnu emphasized that the tobacco plantation sector should be protected by the government because tobacco is one of the national strategic commodities that has been launched by the government for a long time, not even cornering and even leading to castration of the tobacco industry itself through restrictive regulations in PP 28/2024 and RPMK.

"Indeed, what is prohibited is not planting tobacco. But the question is that until now the tobacco has only been absorbed by the industry, because there is no other sector as big as the cigarette industry. The current cigarette industry will be killed with several regulations that are currently in my opinion balasan. And that regulation is what suppresses, what makes now farmers not prosperous," he concluded.