Rights to Food
Februari 08, 2009
By: Muhammad NuruddinFood Reflection
Indonesia Peasant Alliance (API) thank to the Indonesian Legal Aid Association (PBHI) who has written a chronological facts about the normative meaning of Rights to Food based on series events and the fact of United Nations organization on universality of human rights particularly the ekosob rights and recorded events of Agrarian conflict that caused rural poverty-related sectoral policies and demanding responsibilities in the country, especially the basic rights of citizens, such as land and food rights. This is important because 70% of the population in Indonesia rely on agriculture as the main livelihood.
Experience has shown even before and after the Declaration of Human Rights signed issues of impunity, genocide of ethnic and war nations in the name of ideology and religion, poverty, and hunger still occur even if only as the main impact from the greed of industrialized countries to deplete natural resources in the south world of this postscript is that developing countries.
That Condition have a connection with the food sovereignty in developing countries World Food Day on October, 16 2006 the FAO's a theme of "Investing in Agriculture for Food Security". By the Ministry of Agriculture of Indonesia the concept becomes "Developing Independence Food Based Rural Development."
Themes ranged in the World Food Day around poverty, hunger and food security. Discussion on the concept sound by La Via Campesina with the theme Food Sovereignty. Today the world population is 6.5 billion of and will continue to grow 8.5 billion in the year 2025. Will the earth where we live afford to feed its creature?
Illustrates the fact that in every seven seconds, a child under 10 years died due to hunger and 840 million suffer of lack nutrition. What's the reason?
a. Production source, such as land, water, seeds, husbandry, plants, fish and air polluted by the over use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides
b. Damage and decreasing of supporting efforts of agriculture, such as irrigation from 40 to 60 percent.
c. Tighten of agriculture field or conversion to non-agricultural with a fast pace.
d. Demographic pressure due to the collapse in control the high birth rate
e. Politics agriculture developed countries who want to monoculture the food although there are 3,000 species of plants, but only 16 crops for cultivation of food crops.
f. Due to political protection and subsidies, developed countries have food self-sufficient or surplus. The next, as the surplus in developed countries, thy remove the market with price dumping. For the net food importers countries, the condition is very profitable.
g. The impact for developing countries which also developed the same commodity, get the brunt.
The situation and condition of the world reflect the occurrence of the increased food needs of the largest where 85 percent of the world food needs increased comes from developing countries and backward. Meanwhile, the increase of world food production comes from the developed countries where 60 percent of the food growth will be provided by developed countries due to the progress technology and genetic engineering.
The world food market can be described in the demand (changing or the unchanging rice market). Table 1 explains how changes in the 10 biggest countries in the world in terms of production, import, and export. In the table also explains that the (PCt) manufacturers, importers, exporters and international rice were not much change (* See the list of 10 world order in terms of production, import and export on the FAO Database).
The background that explains of how the government of Indonesia becomes the largest importer in the world can be stated in the process of negotiations with the IMF in 1997. IMF push the Indonesian government to control all forms of price control the distribution of all agricultural products are eliminated, the import of agricultural products elimination and privatization of Bulog.
The entire process is written down in the Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies (MEFP) issued a joint letter of Intent (LoI) between the Indonesian governments with the IMF on October, 31st 1997. In paragraph 41 that the structural reform and privatization in the MEFP, the Indonesian government will release the price controls on agricultural prices excluding rice, sugar and tobacco. On January, 1st 1998, due to IMF pressure, the price of rice, sugar and tobacco increased. The report coincides with the signing of MEFP dated June, 24th 1998.
As explained above, the food is a substitute imported commodities and foreign exchange source for the country but is home to millions of peasants living and labor in Indonesia, the effects of neoliberal policies are millions of people into hunger.
To Food: Strategy into the Agrarian Reform
Food is a basic human need, because food a problem related to the individual, household, community and is the human rights. Food sovereignty is a nation's rights, and the monopoly will make the availability of food especially through food colonialism definitely violate Human Rights.
Food sovereignty of a nation will be determined by the availability and affordability of adequate food and nutritious. Thus, there are aspects of the supply that includes production, distribution and consumption of food. On the other hand is also seen the level of people buying power, how the conditions of individual and households level income.
Accessibility of food each person, which is related to the openness and opportunities of each person and family to get food
The importance of food sovereignty of a nation is how to meet their food needs for the people, especially poor people views by the number of aspects of the availability, quality, price, continuity, affordability, and stability. The fact happen does not indicate that all countries, especially poor and backward country meet their rights to food that can be consumed by its people.
In Indonesia, a basic foundation to meet the rights to food is by conducting an agrarian reform for small peasants’ households and laborer allotment. Why? The most powerful reason is the rising number 2.6% of small peasants’ households or increase from the 10, 8 million small peasant households in 1993 become 13.7 million peasant households. From 24.3 million households of peasants based (land base farmers), 20.1 million (82.7%) of them is categorized as poor. Because some peasant households in Indonesia is rice/palawija peasants, then, most tiller is also rice/palawija peasants, Khudori, in the Opinion of Kompas, edition January, 8th 2007.
Are these the basic foothold by the government to import rice 2 million tons every year? If the answer is yes, then the Indonesian government has to lie to the public and the most serious is violation of the ekosob rights due to its equivalent of material value for 2 million tons of rice same with the 6 million / ha capital farm needed around 666,000 of households’ peasant.
In fact, rice revised imported budget can be allocated to do the Agrarian reform in rural areas. However, due to financial and political architecture of the world does not want so, the Indonesian government thought it was stuck in a misguided understand the free trade. Chronology of the facts can be concluded that forced policy through a set of packages offered by multilateral financial agencies have the potential of human rights violations. However, who will dare to oppose the main power of the world capitalism, World Bank and IMF.
Book written by PBHI (Indonesian legal aid foundation) team of Rights to Food Advocacy is overview to juridical framework of National and International political law. This show the fact of how is Indonesian law. If the writings enrich by sociology and anthropology analyses will also enrich the situation describe of experienced by the peasants and laborers in limitation and helplessness. .
The failure of green revolution in increasing rice production and peasants' income explain us about insensitivity of the government of peasants in Indonesia. Indonesian peasants have been trained in the pressure of economic progress since the time of the forced cultivation. The generation of 28 is correct runway put UUPA (Basic Agrarian Law Act) No.5 in 1960 as an umbrella political industry of agriculture but we are not in progress because of the two poles of the world playing the role of Indonesian politics. Generation successor, the 45, built economic foundation with foreign aid strategy, where suppression of cognitive progress. If the forced plant generation was forced to study economic dualism held the first modern agricultural for exports to one side subsistence agriculture. The same thing spirit adapted of the Dutch colonial agriculture in the form of the Law on Water Resources, Mining Law, Forestry Law and last Investment Law.
In the time of the forced cultivation, awakened a duality in the economic and social life of the peasant community, who previously become have not even manifest. In its economy were founded two structures that are not balanced; the colonial plantations of modern export-oriented and traditional agriculture in the stage of subsistence. In social life create a pattern of a society that also dualistic, the Netherlands people colonists’ and indigenous peasant’s community.
The system of force cultivation does not eliminate the duality, for example, through the removal of traditional agriculture systems, but maintained and used. Way through the control of peasants job system and traditional agriculture land so that the economic-social-traditional ones that are supporting the colonial economy. The traditional life of subsistence is support the economic of modern commercial-oriented exports.
Why the modern colonial economy even now need a traditional social-economic? The explanation is, this is the Dutch tactic, so that when colonial economic experience expansion (because the increase of export commodity prices in the world trade), traditional socio-economic development will be easily able to contracted (land and labor mobilization) for the expansion is. When the situation changes, weakening the colonial economy (due to fluctuations of price in the world trade) will be compensated by strengthening the traditional social-economic development, seen here in factors of a peasant population increase and intensification of traditional agricultural become significant (Diah Laksmi, Siasat Petani Jawa, outstanding paper, unknown year).
