Food Imports In Indonesia Could Get More Crazy, Coordinating Ministry For Human Development And Culture: Because The Number Of Workers In The Agricultural Sector Is Decreasing

Illustration. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - The Coordinating Ministry for Human Development and Culture (PMK) stated that food imports in the country will increase in the last 20 years. This will happen if there is no transformation in the agricultural sector, plus the number of workers in this sector will decrease in the future.

Data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) recorded the number of workers in the agricultural sector as many as 29.76 million people in August 2020. However, the number has dropped to 29.59 million people in February 2021.

"In the next 20 years, we must transform the agricultural sector. Because in the future we will be short of manpower in agriculture when our population reaches 300 million people. This must be anticipated, because if not, the impact of dependence on food imports will be even greater", said Deputy for Coordination of Education Quality Improvement and Religious Moderation at the Coordinating Ministry for Human Development and Culture, Agus Sartono, at the 100 Economist Workshop, Thursday, August 26 yesterday.

The decline in the number of workers in this sector, due to the impact of reduced public interest in working in agriculture. And on the other hand, the decrease in the number of workers in the agricultural sector is actually inversely proportional to the number of job seekers in Indonesia. This is because the number of job seekers continues to grow from time to time.

This year, for example, Agus noted that there were 3.7 million graduates of Senior High School, Vocational School, and Madrasah Aliyah. Of that number, 1.9 million people continue their education to higher education.

While the rest, about 1.8 million people directly enter the labor market. This happens because their families are less well off, so the children must immediately work to help the family economy.

But at the same time, there are about 1.56 million college graduates. So in total, there are 3.45 million new job seekers.

"Not to mention that in February 2021 there will be 8.75 million unemployed, all of them are looking for work", he said.