Veranda

API conducted Peace Action of theatrical and art installation in celebration of World Food Day

2009-10-22T13:26:00.003+07:00

Saturday, October 17, 2009, Jakarta. Today Indonesia Peasant Alliance (API) conducted Peace Action of theatrical and art installation in celebration of World Food Day. Peace Action was conducted in Bundaran Tugu Tani (Farmer monument), Menteng, Central Jakarta.

This Peace Action were carried out regarding to small-scale farmers rice household conditions that in the coming years will increase the burden by the high cost of fertilizer as the increases of HET fertilizer to 80%, the expensive of labor in rural areas due to the lack of productive labor, the expensive rent of land increased due to land conversion and disaster from the storm of El Nino and La Nina that will reduce the rate of rice productivity.

The theatrical performed farmers condition in nowadays with the more burden that small-scale farmers have to face. For those, the art installation that put in the “Tugu Tani” (Farmer monument), calling for the demand to the government to increase the HPP (government floor price of rice) up to 20%.

Dozens of scare crows (with farmers and related minister mask) were put along the The Tugu Tani. For reflection, on this World Food Day, we should concern to the farmers’ prosperity to secure the world food sovereignty.

ADB meeting will not be another Pattaya'

2009-05-05T11:07:00.001+07:00

[http://www.thejakartapost.com].A high-ranking military officer and the chief of Bali Police stated Monday both the army and the police were ready to secure the Asian Development Bank's upcoming 42nd Annual Governors Meeting (ADB-AGM), which will be held May 2-5 at the island's tourism enclave Nusa Dua.

Both generals were also convinced the possible presence of protesters during the event would not escalate into another Pattaya, a reference to the aborted ASEAN Summit in Thailand, in which thousands of protesters stormed the conference venue and forced the evacuation of ASEAN leaders.

"Indonesia does not have such a culture. According to the recent intelligence report, there is no indication chaos like in Thailand will happen here," Maj. Gen Supiadin A.S. said.

Supiadin is the operation assistant to the Indonesia Military commander. On Monday, he inspected the Udayana Military Command's preparations, which supervises Bali and West Nusa Tenggara, in securing the event.

He observed as hundreds of soldiers stood in formation at Puputan Margarana Square in Denpasar. Later on, a squad from the Raider battalion performed a hostage rescue simulation.

He declined to mention the number of personnel to be deployed during the meeting, which will be attended by leaders from Georgia, Palau, Cambodia, Fiji, Tonga and the Cook Islands, as well as finance ministers from 67 ADB member countries.

"It's a lot. It's not the number of personnel that is important, but how the meeting can be safe," he told reporters.

Later in the afternoon, the Indonesian National Police's operations deputy, Insp. Gen. SY Wenas, conducted a similar inspection of hundreds of officers from the Bali Police.

Bali Police chief Insp. Gen. T Ashikin Husein said he had heard a number of NGO activists would hold a meeting at Udayana University, Badung regency, which aimed to criticize the ADB loans.

He said he was aware of the possible protests, and said the police would focus on the criminal actions.

"It's okay to stage a protest. They can express their opinions or disagreements. But don't try to disturb the event," he said, adding the police would deploy 1,100 officers. *

Indonesia: Farmers lose in hybrid rice lottery

2009-04-03T15:38:00.000+07:00

Just under two years ago Indonesia's central government launched a major hybrid rice programme. The plan was to convert over 135,000 ha of prime rice land to hybrid rice production by offering farmers free seeds, which the government would purchase from private seed companies. It was a great deal for seed companies, especially for those with the political connections to access the scheme-- people like Tommy Winata, a local tycoon who had just recently set up a joint venture with a Chinese hybrid rice company.

For Indonesia's farmers, it was a different story. By October of 2007, with the first season of the hybrid rice operation in full swing, those farmers who'd signed up to the scheme were experiencing major problems, and even complete crop failures. Some were burning their fields out of desperation.

"We are like a lottery as the government tests its variety," said one farmer from the village of Dusun Karang Duwet, about 25 km south of Yogyakarta City, Central Java.

in 2008, the government expanded its programme and the seed companies ramped-up their production. In July of that year, GRAIN and Biotani met with a number of local groups, farmers and scientists in Central Java to see how farmers were doing with the latest round of the hybrid rice scheme. As we feared, many more unsuspecting farmers are being drawn into using hybrid rice, with miserable consequences.

One of the ways that the government is promoting hybrid rice is through the Sekolah Lapang-- farmer field schools that were developed years ago in Indonesia to foster integrated pest management practices and build collective farmer knowledge and innovation in rural communities. The 36 farmers of one of these farmer field schools in the community of Samben (Argomulyo Village, Sedayu) were asked by local officials to devote the lands of their school to a trial of hybrid rice. The government offered them freed seeds for the trial from a variety called Intani-2, which is marketed by PT Bisi, a subsidiary of the Thai multinational company Charoen Pokphand. Enticed by the offer of free seeds and company promises that the variety would yield 13 tonnes/ha, the farmers agreed to allocate 5 ha of the 16 ha managed by their school to the trial.

In July, we spoke to Mr. Jakiman, the head of the farmer field school. At that time, he said that the crop was progressing well and there were so far few problems with pest and diseases. The harvest, however, proved to be somewhat disappointing. According to Jakiman, the crop yielded 9.6 tonnes/ha. While it only suffered minor attacks from stem borer, he says that pest and disease pressures were particularly low that season and that there is consensus among the local farmers that hybrid rice is in actual fact highly susceptible to pests and diseases. The farmers were also bothered by not being able to save seed from hybrid rice and the high costs of Intani-2 seeds-- 50,000 Rp/kg compared to 6,000 Rp/kg for the commonly grown IR-64. The subsidised trial did not convince them to continue on with hybrid rice. For the next season, they are going back to IR-64.

At another rice farming area outside of Yogyakarta, we met with a farmer who was growing a Pioneer/DuPont variety of hybrid rice on 1.5 ha, in the Mingas Baru hamlet, Klaten regency. His field was in brutal shape. This was the first year he'd planted hybrid rice and he said his crop was devastated by pests and diseases, so much so that he'd been forced to replant some parts of his field and spend even more onseeds. The main problem was blackbug. He tried using the insecticide Furadan against it, and, when this didn't work, he tried a more expensive pesticide. But this didn't work either.

He said the company told him he could get between 13-15 tonnes/ha-- twice his normal yield. This is why he decided to buy it, even at a price of 45,000 Rp/kg. This is the first time in 12 years that he has had pest problems like this and the first time his rice crop has failed. This, he said, is the last time he will grow hybrid rice.

Reports about failures of hybrid rice are also coming in from other parts of the country. Abdullah Kamil is a community organiser who has been working with communities in the Kidiri and Nganjuk regencies of East Java since the early 90s when he started doing underground work to oust Suharto. He says that farmers in both regencies recently began growing hybrid rice. During the last season, starting in January and finishing in April, 4,000 ha were planted to hybrid rice in Kidiri and 6,000 ha planted in Nganjuk. The seeds were distributed to the farmers for free, either through government extension programmes or by candidates from the political parties competing for the May regency elections. He told us that 40% of the hybrid rice crops failed and that when the hybrid rice was milled and cooked, it turned to "boiling water"-- i.e. it was very chalky and broken.

The failures of hybrid rice are no surprise to one of Indonesia's most respected rice scientists, Prof. Dr. Kasumbogo Untung, an entemologist at the Universitas Gadjah Mada in Yogyakarta who was instrumental in developing the country's farmer field schools. He says that he and his colleagues have long been familiar with the problems with hybrid rice, especially its susceptibility to pests and diseases. In fact, he says that he often uses it with his students because it is the only variety that gives students direct access to pests and diseases that, in Indonesia, are only seen in textbooks. Now he worries that the large-scale introduction of hybrid rice will lead to a resurgence of pests like brown planthoper. Dr. Kasumbogo says it is "very regretful" that the government is promoting hybrid rice because it will undo the advances that they made with integrated pest management in the country and cause farmers to increase their use of pesticides and chemical fertilisers.

"Hybrid rice is a luxurious variety that needs more care than a baby," says Dr. Kasumbogo.

One of Dr. Kasumbogo's big concerns is that the push for hybrid rice is undermining the very basis of the farmer field schools. These schools are supposed to take a bottom-up approach with farmers sharing local knowledge and seeds to improve their farms. With hybrid rice though, the government is using incentives and even directives to get the farmer field schools to plant hybrid rice varieties promoted by private companies. It is a top-down, disempowering process.

While in Central Java, we met with a local NGO helping farmers moving in a very different direction than the hybrid rice scheme. The Sekretariat Pelayanan Tani-Nelayan (SPTN) works with about 2,000 farmers engaged in (non-certified) organic farming. One of the farmers' groups they work with is Sri Rejki, based inthe village of Kanoman. The farmers of Sri Rejki plant only local varieties and follow organic practices, and they've managed to convince many other farmers in their village to go back to planting local varieties. Shortly before our visit, some local government officials had convened an evening meeting with them and proposed that they dedicate 30 ha of their land (basically all of it) to field test a hybrid variety, called Supertoy HL-2, with the government providing the seeds for free. The farmers told them they weren't interested. And it's a good thing too. A nearby group of over 400 farmers that did take up the offer with this variety suffered crop failures. Only after protesting and threatening to sue did the company finally agree to compensate the farmers for their losses.

The Sri Rejki farmers provide a strong example of how farmers can organise themselves to improve their livelihoods. But it is increasingly difficult for farmers across Indonesia to navigate past all the traps being laid by the government and private companies, often in collusion.

(For a detailed analysis of the Indonesian government's promotion of hybrid rice, see Hybrid Rice, Indonesia: State subsidising corporates, by Riza Tjahjadi.)

by Biotani and GRAIN
http://www.grain.org/hybridrice/?lid=213

Advancing a Peoples’ ASEAN Statement of the ASEAN Peoples’ Forum-Fourth ASEAN Civil Society Conference

2009-03-13T12:32:00.002+07:00

20 – 22 February 2009
Bangkok, Thailand

We represent a group of more than 1,000 participants from the ASEAN region, and in solidarity with our friends and colleagues from all over the world, have come together at Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand, from 20th to 22nd of February 2009, for the ASEAN Peoples’ Forum (APF) - Fourth ASEAN Civil Society Conference (ACSC IV).

We represent various community-based organisations, civil society organisations, NGOs, social movements of women, children and youths, person with disability, migrant workers, formal and informal workers, indigenous peoples, ethnic minorities, peasants, small-scale fisher folk, stateless and vulnerable groups, and want to highlight the key concerns of people and communities in the region, which must be the focus of ASEAN work for it to be truly significant, meaningful and effective. We call on ASEAN and its member states to:

While strengthening our connection and advancing a Peoples’ ASEAN, following outcomes of the past three ACSC held in Malaysia, Philippines and Singapore, our three-day deliberations underscored challenges to be urgently and strategically addressed in the region.

Here are the key concerns of people and communities in ASEAN region; ASEAN must focus on these issues, for the association to be truly significant, meaningful and effective.

ON POLITICAL-SECURITY CLUSTER
Deteriorating human rights situation and the persistence of intra-state conflict continue to undermine the political, and peace and security conditions in the ASEAN region. The situation is particularly alarming in Burma, with continuing arrests and detention of political prisoners, systematic human rights violations against ethnic minorities, among others, assaults on basic freedoms and rights, especially made stark during the Saffron Revolution and the events surrounding the Nargis cyclone disaster. While human rights violations escalate and remain unresolved, human rights defenders (HRDs) have been targeted and stripped of their freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly.

In view of the above, we call on ASEAN and its member states to:

• Ensure a transparent and inclusive process in the establishment of the ASEAN human rights body (ARHB), by ensuring the widest representation of organisations in the drafting, adoption, and implementation of its terms of reference. The AHRB must be guided by human rights principles of non-discrimination, self-determination, substantive equality, interdependence, inter-relatedness, universality, and indivisibility of human rights standards.

• Call for the High Level Panel on the establishment of the AHRB to make public the draft of the Terms of Reference on AHRB to ensure that the process will be transparent and participatory. The terms of reference of the AHRB should be explicit in its mandate to actively protect, not just promote, human rights in ASEAN.

• Ratify and implement key ILO Core Labour Standards and key UN human rights conventions, which should be reflected in national laws.

• Establish the special mechanism of protection for Human Rights Defenders (HRDs), including women HRDs, in the AHRB, and develop national level protection mechanisms integrated in the mandate of the national human rights institutions, in accordance with the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, including an individual complaint mechanism.

• Ensure that human rights and human security is guaranteed in all situations especially in conflict situation. Provide dispute prevention and resolution and address intra-state conflicts by having early warning system with the involvement of civil society groups.

• Create a regional peacekeeping and peace monitoring team that can be used to monitor armed conflicts in the region.

• Secure the release of all Burma’s political prisoners as a condition for the country to proceed forward to national reconciliation and democratisation process.

• Not to recognize or accept the legitimacy of the upcoming 2010 election which will entrench military rule in Burma, but urge the Burmese military junta to instead review the 2008 Constitution with the involvement of key stakeholders such as leaders of pro-democracy forces and ethnic groups.

• Ensure that the root causes of the Rohingya refugee crisis– the lack of democracy and human rights in Burma – is addressed by calling for a special emergency meeting of ASEAN governments to find a long lasting solution taking a human rights approach in dealing with refugees staying in ASEAN countries.

• Push for the cessation of attacks and exploitative policies against ethnic nationalities, the use of systematic rape as weapon and the use of child soldiers in Burma.

• Ratify and/or harmonise national laws with international human rights conventions and principles, such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, the ILO Multilateral Framework Instrument for the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers, and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Ensure that relevant provisions are implemented at the national level.

• Ensure that the rights of all workers and their families including migrant workers, especially women migrant workers and domestic workers regardless of their legal status, marital status, race, ethnicity, age, or religion, are recognised, protected, realised and fulfilled. All workers should also be given decent work and wages, the rights to organise and to form trade unions, collective bargaining, access to safe and affordable health services including reproductive health, occupational safety, social security, and protection from violence.

• Establish effective mechanisms for social security and worker protection, especially in times of crisis.

• Eliminate child labour and hazardous work in the region.

• Promote, implement, and protect the rights of migrant children and children of migrant workers. Access to nationality shall be guaranteed with no regard of their legal status.

• Involve civil society organisations and ensure transparency in the preparation of the ASEAN Convention on Combating Human Trafficking; ensure that the definition of human trafficking is in line with the Palermo Protocol; and protect and respect the rights of indigenous peoples, ethnic minorities, refugees, child of migrant workers, and sex workers. ASEAN must also ensure that the redress, reparation, and reintegration process of trafficked persons are implemented from a rights based approach and urge responsibilities of ASEAN+3 countries pertaining to the protection of trafficked persons.

• Support the initiative on the international convention on the rights of peasants.

• Exert regional suasion and create mechanisms to solve border conflicts peacefully and without using military force. The rest of the ASEAN members shall be engaged in solving such disputes as well.

SOCIO-CULTURAL CLUSTER
Education, health, heritage, culture and disaster management continue to be neglected areas in the region, with serious consequences to quality of life. Free and quality basic education is still not accessible to all children and youth in ASEAN, and a large number of adults are illiterate. Most ASEAN member states do not seriously allocate budget for education that will reach out to poor and marginalised sectors such as communities in armed conflict areas and emergency areas. ASEAN countries have yet to meet the minimum budget allocation for health despite the high prevalence of malnutrition, maternal mortality, and diseases. Disaster Management is done in an ad hoc way, focusing only on restoring livelihood but not addressing attendant problems such as land disputes and human rights violations, often rendering response ineffective, such as in the case of major disasters such as the Cyclone Nargis.

We call on ASEAN and its member states to:
• Draw up a long-term plan for disaster management, by involving local communities in programmes and creating a volunteer network that could be mobilised when there is an emergency. The disaster management plan should lead to a long-term rehabilitation and sustainable development for the community. Humanitarian efforts should also be transparent and accountable.

• Ensure that all the six goals of Education For All (EFA) are met and that there are national and regional plans in ensuring education for all with affirmative action for marginalized groups. Education should consist of formal, non-formal, and alternative education.

• Secure EFA by allocating 6% of Gross National Product and 20% of national budgets for basic education. Three percent of national budget should go to adult education. ASEAN should work for multilateral and/or bilateral assistance for education.

• Implement education policies toward genuine multiculturalism in education and ensure the use of appropriate languages and dialects as part of quality learning and respect for diverse culture and identity in South East Asia.

• Allocate at least 5% of national budget of each country to ensure safe, affordable and accessible quality health care service for the people.

• Promote gender sensitivity and equality in all its policy and processes.

• Promote ASEAN youth exchange for cultural and historical understanding for solidarity.

• Provide sufficient budget for youth empowerment including promoting and supporting sustainable entrepreneurship for youths.

• Protect and preserve the ASEAN natural and ancient heritages be protected and preserved.

• Promote and support peoples’ media and establish ASEAN’s own media.

ECONOMIC CLUSTER
Large-scale development projects, such as mining, dams, ASEAN power grid, roads and industrial plantation, currently key drivers of the ASEAN economy, have led to environmental degradation and resulted in negative impacts on culture and livelihoods of peoples and communities in the region. Such a development thrust has further exacerbated inequality and food insecurity in the region, where many, especially the poor, are suffering from rising food prices, severe hunger, rising unemployment and falling incomes, and lack of access and control over land, water, productive resources, genetic resources, as well as social protection.

The climate crisis further highlights the vulnerability of the region, where the impacts of climate change have become unmistakable and pervasive, yet there is still no plan to reverse the development path especially for industrial and energy development, and environmental standards or common values at the national and regional levels are still lacking to address this urgent and serious situation.

We call on ASEAN and its member states to:
• Reverse the current unsustainable development trajectory by upholding the rights-based approach to development and providing communities the rights to access and manage natural resources based on participation and local knowledge, balancing pro-poor economic policies with ecological sustainability, ensuring that economic integration in the ASEAN region is built on respect for human rights and peoples’ welfare, and promoting community-based, people-centred and small-holder economic initiatives.
• Guarantee the protection of farmers and all workers-- including formal, informal and migrant workers-- to establish an egalitarian market system, secure livelihoods and decent works

• Produce a strategic policy to eradicate structural poverty in every level, and create mechanisms to protect and secure the welfare of all peoples, especially in times of crisis

• Compel large corporations including transnational corporations, to follow international human rights and environmental standards and conventions. Make them accountable for violations of applicable national laws and international conventions and agreements, including any their existing contractual arrangements with governments and/or communities.

• Formulate, as a matter of urgency and in consultation with civil society organizations, a national climate change action plan that would feed into an ASEAN climate change action plan, including both mitigation and adaptation measures, based on justice and development rights, with emphasis on adaptation plans and disaster risk reduction.

• Develop a common ASEAN position in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations to push for a fair climate regime and climate friendly development efforts that is appropriate to the level of development of the ASEAN member-states and protective of the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities

• Work closely with civil society organisations to develop alternative energy as a strategy.

• Reject nuclear power and show leadership in actively promoting sustainable, renewable energy sources, energy efficiency, energy conservation, and decentralised energy systems and appropriate technologies.

• Address and put a stop to land grabbing and conversions pushed by the business sector and large corporations.

• Develop a common agricultural policy and action plan that aims to improve access and control of small-scale farmers and fisher folk to land, water and other natural resources, increase their productivity and incomes through sustainable livelihoods and organic agriculture within the broader framework of food sovereignty. Establish a common agricultural development fund that will help carry out such agricultural policy and action plan.

• Promote food sovereignty through genuine agrarian reform and equitable access and distribution of land and resources as mandated by the Food and Agriculture Organization and the United Nation International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development.

• Promote and implement people-oriented water resource management.

• Regulate transnational corporations in agriculture and protect the land of smallholder farmers from agribusiness expansion.

• Set-up mechanisms banning any form of speculation on food commodities and impose a moratorium on agro-fuels. Re-orient the ASEAN Food Reserves away from a trade focus and towards the regional stabilisation of supply and prices.

• Re-orient the current export oriented model of development.

• Make trade policy-making and negotiations transparent and accessible by providing space for participation by civil society and social movements like workers organisations.

• Enhance civil society contributions to development by providing an enabling environment; including regular consultations between various sectors across the region, to ensure their participation in the design, implementation and monitoring of aid modalities, development programs and strategies. Formulate an Official Development Assistance (ODA) system for aid coming into the ASEAN region. Ensure that aid will come in the form of grants not loans, and be based on justice and reparation.

• Require business sectors to balance all shares and benefits for the local peoples’ livelihood by ensuring payment for environment services, recognising that local people are the shareholders for those projects and not just recipients of compensation.

Towards a Peoples’ ASEAN

We call on ASEAN to

• Engage the peoples especially youth and children in all of its work, discussions, deliberations, agreements, and monitoring of all the pillars of cooperation.

• Facilitate and recognise all forms of civil society organisations and institutionalise mechanisms of peoples’ participation in ASEAN processes and policies through, for example, the establishment of Small-scale Farmers and Fishers Advisory Council.

OUR COMMITMENTS
We, the participants in this gathering, are committed to work together to build a genuine “people-centred ASEAN”, where all policies are decided by the people, so that an ASEAN community based on human rights, human dignity, participation and social dialogue, social and economic justice, cultural and ecological diversity, environmentally sustainable development, and gender equality can be established

We will continue to make ASEAN accountable to the voices and the needs of the peoples by continuing to effectively monitor the work of ASEAN.

We will continue to struggle side-by-side with our Burmese colleagues to ensure that genuine democracy is restored after more than 20-years of dictatorial rule by the military junta. We therefore demand ASEAN to pressure the Burmese military government to move toward positive changes by engaging in national dialogues with the National League for Democracy and all the Ethnic Nationalities in Burma as soon as possible.

We commit to meet again in October 2009 in Thailand prior to the 15th ASEAN Summit, to follow-up on our demands to ASEAN, with full energy toward a commitment for the creation of a just, people-centred, and genuine caring and sharing ASEAN Community for the peoples.

-END-

“ a Duel” of Heterodox and Orthodox at IGJ

2009-03-07T13:49:00.005+07:00

Research presentation entitled "Re-Explanation of Indonesian Economic Based on Heterodox Economics Perspective” was held by Institute for Global Justice (IGJ) in one of their office at Diponegoro street no. 9 Jakarta. Event that initially invites some economic experts and practitioners, such as Sri Edi Swasono and HS Dillon is trying to duel the two of economic thoughts due to socio-economic and politics of Indonesia. This forum was attended by several NGO representatives, mass organizations and the Youth Movements (SNI, Kasbi, API, IHCS, Jatam, Binadesa, SPI, KAU and others).

"This research was set to use instruments heterodox economics to analyze and explain the Indonesia economy, to gain different explanation of the state relationship, markets, companies and communities", as described by the host in its abstract.

The Research is working to harsh confront the thought of orthodox economic system that 'accused' override the political social dimensions and Heterodox that are considered more "environmentally sound" and holistic.

"The Heterodox mentioned that economics also includes a variety of concepts from other sciences such as history, sociology, political and moral philosophy. While mathematics is also considered important, but are secondary. So, human according to Heterodox means Habitus oeconomicus because it covering all of the social aspects that is not separated ", as described Fachru Nofrian, one of the research team. According to him, this is what distinguishes Heterodox with orthodox which assume that most human beings as the main economic (homo oeconomicus).

In addition to explain the various assumptions and theoretical analysis of the philosophical background of both thought, in the operational level, the template Heterodox analysis also try to expose Indonesian economic behaviour as long. Many data taken from the Bank of Indonesia and the securities exchange is treated in such a way to explain that strengthen of the research material.

However, then it was not a little criticism then popped out. Although almost all the participants followed the discussion agreed to encourage Heterodox thoughts as the basis and paradigm economic, but "stick it" with a variety of factual evidence (?) 'Cases' of the national economy were still considered too far from adequate, it is also recognized by the IGJ director, Bony Setiawan who is also a senior researcher.

"I think it is too far if we want to provide re-explanation to the Indonesian economic based on heterodox perspective. Heterodox term has very important and relevant meaning, but at this time seem to be enough to introduce it first and include them in economic thought that social pro, "he said.

At the end of the forum, the research team in addition to the various arguments, it was also recognized the weakness of the responses as that appear in the forum. "It is important to improve and sharpen the point of view before on eventually it was considered as quite publishable and published in book form," he said at the end of the presentation. (Dzi)

Translated by Julia

AFA holds regional consultation on global financial meltdown and agricultural trade agenda

2009-02-20T15:16:00.001+07:00

The Asian Farmers’ Association for Sustainable Rural Development (AFA) will conduct the “Regional Consultation on Global Financial Meltdown and Agricultural Trade Agenda and 23rd ExeCom Meeting (Back-to-back with CSO side events to ASEAN Leaders Summit)” on 19-25 February 2009, in Bangkok, Thailand.

The objectives of the event are to: (1) Understand the causes and dynamics of the global financial meltdown , analyze its possible effects and impact to the Asia region’s agriculture, and identify the challenges to smallholders; (2) Define and articulate our concerns and proposals on food security, small holder agriculture, as well as a just, equity-led trade to a broader movement of regional civil society groups and government allies; (3) Formulate a regional agriculture trade agenda that benefits and promotes the well-being and livelihoods of small men and women farmers in East and Southeast Asia; and (4) (Internally) Discuss and decide on important organizational matters for 2009.

The major activities of the event include: (1) Regional consultation on two major topics — the impact of the global financial meltdown to agriculture and regional agriculture trade agenda for small men and women farmers; (2) Significant participation in civil society activities parallel to the 14th ASEAN Summit such as the conferences of the Asia Pacific Network for Food Sovereignty and the Asean People’s Forum organized by the Asean Civil Society Conference 4; (2) 23rd AFA ExeCom Meeting; and (3) Dialogue with important and relevant officials of ASEAN regarding our policy perspectives and proposals for the development of small men and women farmers in the region.

The event will be participated in by farmer leaders, including women representatives, from the 9 member organizations of AFA in 8 countries in Asia such As Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.

AFA holds regional consultation on global financial meltdown and agricultural trade agenda

2009-02-19T10:32:00.002+07:00

2009-02-18T14:17:00.004+07:00

SOLIDARITY MESSAGEs for API

2009-02-09T13:16:00.007+07:00

We want to congratulate API for promoting resistance and struggle against agriculture liberalization and building peasant bases for developing alternative propositions. APIs efforts to liberate peasantry from exploitation, is both urgent and necessary at this time in history.

Peasant struggle is critical for human progress and authentic development. It is a pressing need of millions of people. Small and marginal peasantry, landless agriculture workers and women among them, continue to be one of the most exploited groups of the world. Their situation of exploitation and crisis is not new…. and not improving. Condemned to misery and humiliation, small holder farmers and landless have very little to turn to, to ensure survival, except to join the swelling ranks of urban wage labour in oppressive peripheries of modern cities.

This group of peasantry lives in areas of the developing world where over the years agriculture has been “orphaned”, or if one understands it in a historical perspective, has never had a chance to be nurtured into young adulthood. With the march of neo-liberal economic globalization the situation of peasantry has further worsened. Over the last 25 years or so, the shrinking state support to agriculture has further eroded potential for agricultural development in most of the developing world. Even where the regions they live in have seen benefits of agriculture revolutions such as in parts of East Asia, Latin America, India and Pakistan, small farmers have never had the means to access and be part of agriculture progression. Large parts of African agriculture have continued in orphanage, and continued to suffer from distress once imposed on it in different phases of colonial development.

The efforts of peasants to renew themselves through their own hard labour, have also been denied. International prices of food have remained too low for peasants in developing countries to earn enough to support themselves, invest in means of production, renew themselves, and support their own development. Depressed agricultural prices, we know are a result of surplus production in a few areas which have had huge state support in its development. It is only with all subsidies that agriculture in the north is able to produce food at a low price and take the benefits of free trade to export to other regions. It is necessary to underline that international agriculture trade tends to align prices with the lowest ones being offered by exporters of surplus produce.

We have seen how low prices lead to dumping starvation and impoverishment - excluding millions of peasants from agriculture, while promoting under-consumption and under utilization of agricultural resources in regions where majority of agricultural producers reside. Indonesia is no stranger to such dumping during the last crisis.

We have also witnessed how the control over knowledge and technology has been shifted away from farmers to the realm of profits of large corporations. Instruments of Intellectual Property Rights, genetic engineering and technological control at the hands of multinationals mean that the rights of peasants over use of their traditional knowledge for their own good are also lost

In most of the developing countries under-equipped agriculture, often taxed, and insufficiently protected, never had a chance to develop. It has been continuously marauded by North-South and South-South competition, a fall in prices and a large attendant exodus from agriculture. For long, peasants have asked a simple question. Why should we not be allowed to make policies for our own good?

Escaping peasantry has had nowhere to go. Industrialization has never had a chance to progress on the trajectory it begun to, during early stages of post-colonial development. The Bandung dream of post colonial reconstruction did not come to fruition. Since the 1980s, austerity policies of governments, deregulation, relocation, and the business use of free capital have all worked together to ensure that a happy dream of the exploited world, remained a momentary memory at the dawn of liberation.

As the world wakes up to a anti crisis strategy, and a recognition that the whole way of life will need fundamental alternation if we are to see long term sustainable solutions to feed and develop humanity in the coming years, it is clear that such a strategy will need to be firmly based on developing poor peasant economy. The contours of this strategy will need to:

1. Increase Food production, availability and access based on the principle of
Food Sovereignty.
2. Reverse abandonment of sovereign policies of economic development.
3. Increase agricultural prices in a gradual manner, to ensure promotion of
agricultural growth in areas where exodus is now taking place, to ensure the
crisis of peasantry is averted
4. Promote, through policy paradigm and state financing sustainable bases of
agriculture including subsidies for such agriculture to develop
5. Ensure popular control of knowledge and technology in all spheres, including
critically in the sphere of agriculture. Ensure through public research and
development, investments in knowledge and technology and extension services to
promote sustainable small scale agriculture
6. To protect peasants and workers through reducing taxation (direct and
indirect) on agriculture and to encourage taxation on basic imports of food
grains and other agricultural goods.
7. Raise Demand and invest in local economic development. Raise purchasing power
of poor and LDC countries where unsatisfied needs continue to be located.
8. Increase of Wages and full employment. A fundamental guarantee to work and
employment and decent wage are critical engines for human development and
auto-centric development
9. Progressive Agrarian Reform, including on land policies, policies of commons
and biodiversity and renewed industrialization, particularly in rural areas
10. Progressive protection – Social protection to reverse the historical damages,
where social protection is offered as a matter of right and as a comprehensive
package. This includes for instance; pensions, cash transfers, employment
guarantee programmes and provisions for socially vulnerable groups.

As API congress deliberates, reflects, reviews and consolidates its lessons of progress, we hope that you would share your strategies and successes with other similar struggles in the global south. Your successes and experiments of hope may serve as a beacon for several other formations.

With best wishes and
In solidarity

Sandeep Chachra

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Dear M. Nuruddin,

Many thanks for your reply and your invitation to the General Assembly. Unfortunately, I cannot join you this time. I will be travelling to Vietnam next week to visit our partner organizations there.
I wish you a fruitful meeting in the General Assembly and the included Farmers’ Dialogue with UNDP. Will be very interested in the outcome.

Regards for now,

Jeannette van Rijsoort
relatiebeheerder/liaison officer/oficial de enlace

vanRijsoort@agriterra.org
www.agriterra.org

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09 February 2009

on the occasion of
3rd General Assembly of Aliansi Petani Indonesia
9-13 February 2009, Jakarta, Indonesia

Warmest greetings from your regional organization, the Asian Farmers' Association for Sustainable Rural Development or AFA!

We are happy and proud to see the fast growth of API as a strong and capable farmers' organization in Indonesia. Since your birth in 2001, API has grown in many aspects: more members , more farmers assisted in land reclaiming, as well as in sustainable agriculture technologies and marketing of products, more involvement in international events , and more recognition, from colleagues and government agencies, as a capable Farmers' organization defending smal scale men and women farmers' righs .

Today, many farmers face daunting challenges . There is unbridled agriculture trade liberalization which threatens our livelihoods in favor of commercial agriculture.

The government provides still inadequate programs and resources for needed rural infrastructure, research and extension, pre and post harvest facilities; it still fails short of enacting favorable policies and incentives for us to exercise our rights and to want to continue farming. Global warming has exacerbated these conditions, as we face extreme weather disturbances and natural disasters that can spell not only loss of propeties but also loss of lives.

It is in this context that API is called upon to become a true social reform agent in the rural areas. As you establish your directions and strategies for 2009-2011, may you be guided by your vision: Justice, prosperity for the peasants!

AFA shares your goals and look forward to stronger collaboration so that together, we can make policies and programs work for the benefit of small men and women farmers in Indonesia, and in the Southeast Asian region!

Hidup Petani! Long Live API!

Cheers,

Ms. Sudaporn Sittisathapornkul
Chairperson

Ms Esther Penunia
Secretary General

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February 9, 2009

M. Nurrudin General Assembly of API
Dear friends, colleagues, and comrades in API:

We express our full support, solidarity, and heartfelt congratulations to Aliansi Petani Indonesia on the occasion of your Third Congress on 9-13 February, 2009.

We are particularly happy to know about your mission to “strengthen the peasant community to gain an alternative to the neoliberal system.” Like API, PAKISAMA is actively pursuing sustainable agriculture as the means to counter the destructive impact and effect of agricultural liberalization. Given our globalized world, we know that this cause can only be successfully pursued when undertaken in solidarity with farmers’ organizations in other countries.

The holding of your Third Congress is an indication of API’s growing strength which we consider as our victory too. May you continue to grow in strength and numbers in the years ahead! May our common advocacies continue to find inspiration in the lives of the farming communities we serve, and may our causes triumph over the struggles that confront us.

In solidarity,

Crispin Aguelo.
Pangulo A

Letter from Evo Morales

2009-02-08T13:16:00.005+07:00

S.E/. José Manuel Durao Barroso
PRESIDENT of the European Commission

La Paz, 16 January 2009
Esteemed President

I profoundly regret that the European Commission has proposed to the Council of Europe that the negotiations for a Regional Association Agreement between the European Union and the Andean Community, as initiated under the Bolivian Presidency of CAN on 14 June 2007, be considered terminated.

Bolivia has always worked for a bloc-to-bloc agreement that strengthens regional integration and which includes, in a balanced and complementary manner, the three pillars of Political Dialogue, Co-operation and Commerce.

In this context, the Andean Presidents agreed in Guayaquil to proceed with this region-to-region negotiation, and requested a meeting at the highest level to discuss the flexibility of the European Union in light of the different economic approaches that exist within the countries of the Andean region and that were always put forward by our country.

The focus of Bolivia is to preserve the negotiation bloc-to-bloc, and in this has been close to the European spirit of integrating countries despite their differences, with respect for distinct ideological beliefs and models of development and to do search for the common good globally. This is the spirit of the founding of the European Union since the Treaty of Rome in 1957.

However, instead of seeking to keep regional negotiations going, and exploring in a constructive and imaginative manner how best to incorporate the different economic approaches of the Andean countries, the European Commission has made a proposal that seriously weakens the process of Andean integration and promotes bilateral commercial negotiations that divide the countries of CAN between those that are for a Free Trade Treaty, and others that want commercial agreements that consider actually existing differences, asymmetries and which do not limit our right to define our national policies regarding essential matters such as investment, services, intellectual property, state procurements and competition policy.

The new modality of negotiation that is proposed in his letter, privileges unilateral free trade treaties with the member states of CAN, reducing the pillars of Political Dialogue and Cooperation to simple appendices, and representing a hard blow to the Andean Community which is the oldest process of integration of the Americas.

In this respect, and with much pain, Bolivia sees that the main integrated bloc of the planet is bending under the pressure of two countries and mainly commercial interests, throwing to the wayside all the negotiation efforts for an integral Association Agreement only after a year and a half of conversations.

In this sense, we not only cannot accept the EC's new proposal, but we also think it will deepen the crisis within CAN and bring a new situation of conflict, including weakening the enforcement of the Agreements on Political Dialogue and Cooperation of 2003 that we have subscribed to within our respective regions.

I also wish to point out that Decision 667 of CAN and Tarija Declaration of 14 June 2007 established a negotiation mandate with the European Union on a bloc-by-bloc basis, and that a modification such as you propose requires a new decision by the Presidents of CAN.

On behalf of the Bolivian people, I would like to reiterate one more time that the bloc-by-bloc negotiation for the strengthening of the Andean process of integration is possible if the European Union sticks faithfully to its integration principles and adopts a broader position on the commercial issues that takes into account the great asymmetries between regions and which permits the sovereign application of different national policies of development.

I would like to take this opportunity to express my highest regard for His Excellency.

Mr. Evo Morales Ayma
Constitutional President of the Republic of Bolivia

CASE DOCUMENTATION: INDONESIAN FARMERS PROSECUTED FOR BREEDING THEIR OWN SEEDS

2009-02-08T11:35:00.003+07:00

Hira Jhamtani and Dey Patria

Some Indonesian farmers were recently prosecuted at the behest of a seed marketing company for breeding their own seeds instead of purchasing them from the company. Although the cases did not involve genetically modified seeds or seed multinationals, they have some disturbing implications.

IN early 2005, without too much media and public scrutiny, Indonesian farmers were issued a warning by a seed company: "Do not be too creative, do not breed your own seed, or you will be prosecuted." This warning was given through the prosecution of several farmers who tried breeding their own corn seed in Nganjuk and Kediri Regencies, East Java.
One of those farmers was Tukirin, a simple 53-year-old corn grower in Nganjuk Regency. He was punished with a suspended prison sentence and was ordered not to plant his own corn seeds for one year. The following is his story.

The Tukirin case
One Friday afternoon in October 2003, Tukirin had the shock of his life when he was told that a couple of police officers were looking for him.
He had never had to deal with the police in his entire life. They had come with employees of the seed company PT Benih Inti Subur Intani (BISI) and several government extension officers serving as witnesses. They charged him with "stealing parent seeds from PT BISI".

Back in 1994 Tukirin and a few other farmers in Nganjuk were involved in a cooperation project between PT BISI and the local government to develop corn seeds. PT BISI was established in 1983, a joint venture between the Thailand-based Charoen Phophand (80% share) and a national company PT Central Pertiwi Indonesia (20%). It leads the hybrid corn seed market in Indonesia.

Tukirin was asked to participate in the project without being informed of the objective, except that the farmers would be taught the skill of breeding seeds. The farmers bought seeds from the shop while PT BISI provided the male seeds. Then the seeds were planted on each farmer's land in a particular way: three rows of female seeds and one row of male seeds. The corn seeds harvested from the farmers' plots were bought and marketed by PT BISI. The project ended in 1998 and Tukirin was named the second best seed developer in the project. There were never any legal terms of contract between the farmers and the project management or PT BISI.
In 1999, Tukirin continued to plant corn by buying seeds every season. He needed 10 kg of corn seeds for his half-hectare plot of land. At the current price, BISI-produced seeds cost Rp. 26,000-30,000 per kg (about US$2.90-3.30). Thus the cost of seeds would come up to around Rp. 300,000.

In 2003 Tukirin wanted to breed his own seeds using the skills he had acquired during the project. He selected the larger corn type with seeds which were pale in colour, which he considered as male. He planted them with seeds from normal corn that were considered female. He used a modified method of planting in which he inserted male seeds among the rows of female plants. He succeeded in breeding seeds this way, although they were not of the same quality as the seeds from PT BISI.

The best price for corn harvest was Rp. 1,200 per kg, but the actual price was always lower than that. In other words, farmers like Tukirin do not make much money. Therefore anything that could cut production costs was welcome. Thus, Tukirin's colleague was happy when he started breeding seeds and selling them at Rp. 6,000 per kg. He sold them without labels and just among his neighbours. He also wanted to continue to experiment further but had to stop when he was arrested.

Trial without a defense lawyer
PT BISI somehow got hold of this information and filed a case against Tukirin and his friend Suprapto, accusing them of distributing seeds illegally without certification. Typical of the Indonesian legal system, the case was handled in a bizarre manner indicative of legal flaws and collusion.

First of all, police officers, employees of PT BISI and witnesses from among the government agriculture extension officers confiscated two female and two male corn plants from Tukirin's field without prior consent or proper authorisation. These plants were two months old and the flowers had not matured. Later on in the court, different corn plants were exhibited whose flowers had bloomed.

Secondly, Tukirin was never represented by (or provided with) a lawyer during both interrogation as well as the court proceedings. The judge did not offer him the services of a state-paid lawyer, to which Tukirin had a right.
Initially Tukirin's family tried to settle the dispute out of court. His wife Amenah told the PT BISI executives that they were prepared to apologise, despite their belief that they did not steal any BISI seeds.

Tukirin's son-in-law sought the help of the local government, which then arranged a meeting between the local agriculture office, Tukirin and PT BISI. At that meeting, the government officials told Tukirin to stop using his own seeds and buy seeds from the shop. Also, when the Regent of Nganjuk heard of this case, he said the government would facilitate an out-of-court settlement and specifically warned, "None of my citizens will be prosecuted". He instructed his officials to make sure that Tukirin was not brought to court, but there was no real action to that effect. This is indicative of either pressures on the local government or collusion. For, after some time, when everyone thought the case had been closed, Tukirin and Suprapto were asked to appear in court in January 2005.

In a very unjust court proceeding, where he was not defended by any lawyer, Tukirin explained how he bred his own seeds, but the expert witness from the government's seed supervision and certification office said that it was impossible to breed seeds using Tukirin's method. It was ironic that a government official actually testified against farmers.

When asked about legal representation, Tukirin said he did not know or understand that he had a right to be represented by a lawyer. "I do not know the law. I have rarely been out of my village and I simply do not understand the system," he said.

Finally, it was not very clear what Tukirin was actually charged with: stealing parent seed, selling seeds without proper certification, or copying BISI's breeding method. Initially, PT BISI accused Tukirin of stealing its parent seeds but it was difficult to prove this in court. Tukirin pleaded not guilty to these accusations. He said he did not steal seeds, he did not copy the methodology of PT BISI and he did not market uncertified seeds as he only sold them to his neighbours and did not make a big business out of this.

The judge ruled that Tukirin violated Article 14(1) of Law No. 12/1992 on plant cultivation system. This article says that seed certification is to be undertaken by the government, or by individuals or legal bodies that are authorised to do so. (But Tukirin did not certify his seeds!)
Article 61(1) b says that unauthorised seed certification as provided in Article 14(1) is liable to a penalty of a maximum three years' imprisonment and a maximum fine of Rp. 150 million. The judge handed down a six-month imprisonment, but suspended it and instead imposed a one-year probationary sentence. It also prohibited Tukirin from planting his own corn seeds for a year.
Tukirin and Suprapto were not the only farmers prosecuted by the court. Three other corn farmers from Kediri were also prosecuted. The Kediri court also imposed suspended prison and probationary sentences on Slamet and Kusen, and one-month imprisonment on seed seller Djumadi. In addition, the Kediri court prohibited Djumadi, Slamet and Kusen from planting and breeding corn seeds. Local non-governmental organisations (NGOs) report similar but undocumented cases from Nganjuk, Kediri and even Tulungagung regencies, where farmers dared not talk to reporters or NGOs of their prosecution.

One such case involved Budi Purwo Utomo, a young farmer from Kediri who learnt seed breeding techniques from books. He was accused by PT BISI of conducting unauthorised seed certification, trademark violation and copying breeding technique. This time BISI brought the case in two areas: Tulungagung, where the seeds were distributed and Kediri where Budi stayed. Budi was acquitted by the Tulungagung court, but still has to face the Kediri court. Unlike Tukirin, he is helped by lawyers from the Muhammadiyah University of Malang.

Legal flaws
Indonesian legal expert Sulistiono Kertawacana contends that the court verdicts had four serious legal flaws. First the courts said Tukirin and friends had copied BISI's patented corn-breeding method, based on Law No. 12/1992. In effect, though, this law does not have provisions on patent violation.

Secondly, if indeed this was a case of patent violation, the Trade Court should have been charged to handle the case, as provided for in Article l118 of Law No. 14/2001 on patents. Thirdly, Tukirin and Djumadi could only be tried for patent right violation if it had been proved that a violation had indeed occurred. Tukirin, as the one accused of patent right violation, should have been imprisoned but was not, while Djumadi as the seed seller was prosecuted. Yet, in an interview, PT BISI insisted that it was accusing Tukirin not of patent violation but of "illegal" certification of seeds.

Company response
For poor farmers like Tukirin, having to appear in court to answer the questions of strangers like a criminal while not understanding what he was actually charged with, may be more of a penalty than imprisonment itself. Thus the whole case was pursued to convey an important message: "Buy your seeds from the companies or else..."

This was partly confirmed in an interview with a staff member from PT BISI who admitted that they found it difficult to control what they termed as "piracy of seeds" by farmers. "They (farmers) have more faith in local seeds that they breed. It took us a long time and a lot of effort to persuade them to switch to our hybrid seeds," he said. The Tukirin case, according to him, was the tip of the iceberg of the seed piracy network. He said recently farmers in Kalimantan, Sumatra and Sulawesi who bought BISI-produced seeds complained of low quality, poor performance and longer planting period. PT BISI found that the seed supply came from East Java and therefore they suspected a seed piracy network may be operating in this province. When asked who was involved in the seed piracy, he declined to respond. He just said that if farmers were allowed to breed their own seeds, the efforts of PT BISI would go to waste.

The main issue for PT BISI and the seed supervision and certification agency was: how and from where did the farmers get the parent seeds? It is well known that when hybrid seeds are replanted (from the first harvest), plant performance declines up to 50%. Thus PT BISI and government officials suspected that farmers were given parent seeds by other parties. This is merely an unproven allegation, yet PT BISI can have its way in the courts.

Government's views
The provincial government of Nganjuk released a statement deploring PT BISI's actions. The statement said that it was the government's understanding that the dispute between the farmers and PT BISI had been settled and so the prosecution of farmers came as a surprise. It also revealed that the Nganjuk government did not get any financial gain from the project with BISI. They agreed to the project as a means to teach farmers modern seed breeding skills. Yet when the farmers mastered the breeding technique they were taken to court instead of being appreciated. However, the government of Nganjuk did not take any further step beyond issuing the statement.

The seed supervision and certification agency, for its part, blamed the farmers. In an interview with the authors, the head of the agency said that the moment the government enacted a piece of legislation, the citizens must know about it. In the case of farmers, extension officers would have told them about Law No. 12/1992 and the illegality of selling uncertified seeds. Thus, he said, Tukirin and his friends lied in court when they said that they did not know they had to register their seeds at the agency. He accused farmers of "wilfully pirating company seeds".

This is a very strange statement as, in an archipelago as vast and with many far-flung islands as Indonesia, even local government officials sometimes have no knowledge of legislation enacted in the capital city by the central government. In a workshop in East Nusa Tenggara, for instance, when asked if they knew about Law No. 29/2000 on plant variety protection, local officials from the agriculture service responded that they had no idea at all, or that they might have heard about it but did not know the substance of the law. When even local government officials are not aware of the laws, how can farmers be expected to fully understand the consequences of breeding seeds?

Future implications
There are three implications for the future. First, unlike the Percy Schmeiser case in Canada, the Tukirin case did not involve genetically modified seeds. But this is indicative of what could happen next once Indonesia allows corporate-produced genetically modified seeds to be distributed in Indonesia. The issue would then revolve not around farmers like Tukirin breeding seeds but farmers becoming victims of genetic contamination.

Secondly, having ratified the World Trade Organisation (WTO)'s TRIPS Agreement on intellectual property rights, Indonesia now has two laws that would make Tukirin-style prosecution possible: Law No. 29/2000 on plant variety protection and Law No. 14/2001 on patents as mentioned above. The first is based on the 1991 UPOV (International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants) and the government treats this as the sui generis system for plant variety protection as mandated by the TRIPS Agreement. The second is based on the TRIPS Agreement, including a full translation of its controversial Article 27.3(b). Both will provide maximum intellectual property protection to companies and "intellectual" plant breeders, at the expense of farmers' rights over seeds. If Tukirin's case had been based on Law No. 29/2000, the court would have handed him an even more severe sentence.

Third, PT BISI is not a multinational in the real sense of the word even though it is a joint venture company with a domestic presence. In the future, farmers may have to face pressures from giant seed multinationals such as Monsanto or Syngenta. A different story might emerge then.

What says Tukirin?
Tukirin himself has several things to say about his case. First, he wonders why PT BISI felt he posed a competitive threat. "The quality of their seeds is much better than mine. They have a wider distribution network. I just want to make seeds for myself and some friends, get a little income. I am just a small fish. Why fear farmers like me?" he says. All he wanted to do was to cut production costs without harming anyone.

Secondly, he laments the lack of government support. He says government officials often stress that farmers must be skilled and independent. He wanted to be skilled in breeding seeds and to use his own seeds. Why then, he wonders, was he prosecuted for doing so? Also, he wants the government officials to communicate the legal aspects of seed breeding so that farmers can understand the system.

Thirdly, after the one year is over, he will continue to breed his own seeds. He says as long as he does it on his land, he feels he has a right to do so. He wants to continue experimenting on seeds bought in the shops to see if he can breed different seeds of better quality.

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Hira Jhamtani is a Third World Network associate based in Bali.
Dey Patria is a researcher in Mojokerto, East Java who investigated this case

THE EXPENSIVE OF FOOD PRICE ECONOMIC AND CULTURE PRESSURE FOR RURAL AND URBAN POOR HOUSEHOLD

2009-02-08T11:29:00.002+07:00

Food crisis is the impact of economic recession due to increasing world oil prices. As a result, food crisis is not a lack of food in the market trade, but world food prices bounced higher so quickly is because China, Vietnam and India as food producers and exporters delay doing food export in international market.

Developing countries that follow the scheme's economic assistance through the IMF policies directly feel the impact of the rise in food prices. Food subsidies applied by each developing country can not afford a rate increase in oil prices and followed by the increase in food prices. Later estimated, the impact of the increase of food hit the most vulnerable people in the urban informal sector and agriculture in rural areas feel the direct impact due to recession in the world economy.

Strategies for rural communities to survive in the economic press and access to food is done by selling valuables (jewelry, bicycles, furniture), owing in a store, owing to the loan to meet the food needs of families. Even in extreme situations, access to food is done by reducing the amount and quality of family food consumption. They who previous consume the calorie needs 2000 calories per day, was forced to reduce the quality of the source of animal and vegetable protein consumption to switch into food filling the stomach even though it comes from food containing dangerous preservative for human health.

In the situations above, when the food crisis occurs, children and women who most feel the impact because of course the consumption is provided by women. Changes in behavior that can be shown showing ways and strategies to face food insecurity by recycle in which food is consumed where food extraction was usually done by women. Extraction food are the most commonly performed with recycle the remains of cassava that is un nutritious food to be consumed or process the remaining rice to be dried and collected, and then slowly return to cook the food as the family food. Not surprisingly then, the rising child malnutrition (marasmus) and more severe the disease hungry edema (marasmus kwarsiokor) until the child death due to lack of food nutrition.

In urban areas, the informal sector, although it small percentages, but the data shows mother and children desperate to commit suicide due to the resilience of families not able to survive longer.

Indonesia, where all the land surface, 80 percent is in the category of dry land in the upland. Thus, the existing plant vegetation allows the growth of food crops that are very diverse and varied views of species of plants. i.e.: tubers and fruits that can be consumed and good calories for the body. However, the political rice strategy that run up to this time, make the majority of the population will depend on the food availability of rice. The rice politics also conquered the culture where changes behavior of the community has not really called to eat if they do not consume rice. Moreover, if there are guests who visit, the local rice varieties exchanged with the hybrid varieties of rice from the nearest store. Thus, the conquest of food culture is breaking the diversity of non-rice food crops that practically developed by heredity.

As a community of farmers, the global trend that is not stabilized and prediction of the next Indonesia are facing food scarcity as the result of blew out of the population accompanied by the increasing of conversion in the field of agriculture, the strategy should be developed based on the family food sufficiency. During this time, the adequacy of food is by food of rice and government policy with the household food for poor farmers in the form of direct assistance as Raskin (rice for poor people).

A surprise, the biggest beneficiaries Raskin (rice for poor people) is a household peasants who landless or known as laborer. In meeting with the farmers organization in the area of the high vulnerability of food insecurity and malnutrition in East Nusa Tenggara, generated activities to prevent food insecurity by reducing not eat rice one day a week. The peasant organization and members, especially women farmers promote local food such as local corn that climate resistant and highest protein except yam tree next to the food consume. To do so, they invite all social institutions, especially institutions that are indigenous to revive traditions and local food system that is able to provide calorie and nutrition of food for the community.

In the plateau area, the community strategy develop food security -based family in developing and cultivating food crops non rice, such as tubers (cassava, yam, suweg (Amorphophallus Campanulatus B1), porang) and cereals (jewawut/milet) in the family garden. If they achieve surplus food production, they prepare food to be various food (gatot, tiwul, local snack) that has own market in the traditional markets. Besides maintain the food system of family and community, they can work and provide add value in the form of processed food.

By improving the organization that is sensitive to food issues, the women communities give the basic foundation to the level of health and work productivity as the ability in women's access and control of food resources provided by the surrounding natural environment and less attention due to the macro policy-oriented food such as rice. Thus, food identification and source of protein and calories begin to introduce in the meetings of the village to ensure and teaching to live full and healthy can be done without consuming rice. Although for this, require a struggle and a high commitment as what has been done by the farmers in the area of East Flores - NTT - who eat the rice in one day a week.

Author: M. Nuruddin (Secretary General of API)
translated by Julia (International Division of API)

(For further detail of food crisis issue log on the API website: www.aliansi-petani-indonesia.org / www.api-indonesia.co.cc)

Climate Justice Movement

2009-02-08T11:09:00.002+07:00

Monday, Dec 17 2008

Global warming is the increase temperature on the surface of the earth. Global warming has been going on some time ago caused by natural influence, among others: changes orbit of the earth, sun, Mount Merapi eruption, greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, but most experts concluded that the donation is the largest global warming gas emissions caused dispose on the activities of human life.

Regarding the issue, the various countries from all parts of the world, both developed and developing country gathering in Bali Island of Indonesia, to determine and formulate the various steps and agreements regarding the 'rescue' of the earth. However, as many parties lancer, international forum is also believed to be full of political and economic international. Countries in the developed countries will eventually keep control their supremacy based on the interests of the world, although clearly in it, that the impact of global warming will not just overwrite the developed country as it more responsible of global warming occurrence due to the process of industrialization and exploitation of natural large scale, but also poor countries and regional countries that have not even left modernity.

To give encouragement, criticism and input in the meeting, in Bali, where the summit was held, also gather the various elements of society, NGOs, the media and various countries such as Greenpeace, Asian Farmer Association (AFA), Institute for Global Justice (IGJ) Indonesian Peasants Alliance (API), and others.

In addition to organizing various discussion forums and solidarity, the institution is also held various actions. However, because of security and tranquility reasons of Bali that postscript is one of the international tourists’ destinations, the security map also being high regarded. Therefore, the volume of peasant action was limited to the format which is safe enough to not detract from the event to disrupt the summit.

Indonesian Peasant Alliance (API), which also has a base of peasants in Bali - which is also the Region apart - making the action down the road together with the local indigenous with the grand issue "Global Warming - Global Poverty." Although the amount is not great, obviously it is good enough to attract the participants and other elements or the mass media.

Meanwhile, in the same day when all eyes focus on Bali, API conducted action down the road and make long march from the complex of the Istiqlal mosque to the State Palace. A bit action from the schedule because of rain that came down was followed by not less than 250 people consisting of the origin peasant of Brebes Central Java that coordinated through Jamuni (API agricultural union. Red), FPR (front People's Struggle) and the Student Solidarity for Democracy (SOMASI).

In various oration and leaflets, API yells the exploitation issue by developed countries of industry in both human and nature resource of developing countries. The Logic capitalism in the process of dredging and capital accumulation in the end not only stifle the political-economic, but also directly start erase the nature sovereignty and resulted in earth imbalance and stimulate the occurrence of global warming.

After the oration and spread the leaflets at the State Palace, then the mass continue the long march to jl. Diponegoro. In the secretariat of IGJ is awaiting stage of solidarity which is also prepared for the culture of action titled Climate Justice (justice Climate), in addition to arts such as magic show, music and entertainment. As the Ending of the event, the elements representatives come together in a stage to states the petition of culture regarding meeting in Bali.

Indonesian farmers to discuss Plant Variety Protection Law

2009-02-08T10:59:00.005+07:00

The Plant Variety Protection Laws is an important issue that has crucial link to agriculture and food security in Indonesia. For one, it raises the issue of farmers’ rights versus breeders’ rights.

In order for farmers to understand the issue better and to share experiences and views with each other, the Indonesian Peasants Alliance (Aliansi Petani Indonesia or API) will hold the “Farmers’ Dialogue on Plant Variety Protection Regulation and Implications for Food Security” on February 10-11, 2009 in Jakarta, Indonesia.

The dialogue will be co-organized by the Third World Network (TWN) and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).

Participants to the dialogue will include peasants, community organisers and non-governmental organisations.

For more information in Bahasa, click here or go to http://www.api-indonesia.co.cc/.

Natural Farming vs Farmer’s Dependency

2009-02-08T10:48:00.004+07:00

One of undeniable reality was it is real if Indonesian peasants were getting marginalized by their market dependency, weather in the production or distribution of agricultural crops. The policies of countries in order to control the 'dynamic' market often proved can not afford to provide adequate protection, over the agricultural sector and encourage the actors production (in this case, small farmers) are able to be in a strong bargaining position.

The phenomenon of the disappear fertilizer in the market when the production season begin then directly impact the high price of fertilizer was a common thing happened. The situation force the peasants to 'serve' the market without even a bit can protect them. Obviously, the productions of peasants are already trapped in a high cost economy with comparative prices at the harvest time, which also does not arrive on the side of their economic.

Those situations did not give a bargain and always put peasants on the vulnerable and uncertain condition. Serious attention and concrete action for this are education and training in natural agriculture or known as natural farming.

Natural farming as once initiated and introduced by Dr. Cho from Korea is common nowadays, but the breath autonomy and 'pro-environment,' that he observed not fully responded by most people. One example, related to the Go-Organic 2010 program of Susilo Bambang, encouraged the program does not have the pretension then fully orient attitude instructive for autonomy in the case of peasant to produce and distribute their products in order to push up the position of its peasant marginalized either economic or political, but the principal thing is not only a desire for more to convert it from the beginning with pesticides feed into organic chemicals. While the pattern of dependence of farmers on artificial fertilizers factory is not changed, it will be able to predict which of the packages can be ascertained that the projects will follow the form of fertilizer-production of organic fertilizer by the certain companies of government agreement for mass supply. At this situation, the position of farmers is not actually changed, that is, still depends on the fertilizer market that also means the game will remain vulnerable and market monopoly.

Natural farming that is not solely related to the elements with erupted burly feed on the ground due to chemicals in the pesticide chemicals that are used for and contribute to the occurrence of global warming and damage to ecosystems, but that must also strategically consumed if this kind of agriculture were assumed as an action to cut chain of peasant dependence on other sectors, industry or factory.

In this regard, the API central cooperation with Region API Bali which consists of two organizations in two different districts, namely Seka Buleleng Tani (STB) and Seka Jembrana Tani (STJ) hold food dialogue and natural farming training.

Events that take place in the village of Sumberkima, Buleleng was held with the enthusiasm of 25 to 29 October 2008. In addition to how much work the various techniques and nutrition formula of materials in the vicinity of the participants have also openly to give each other input of the field during this and they naturally do. Obviously forum was held warm and growing.

After having satisfy with the various theories and give each other feedback, practice sessions and the making of fertilizer nutrients are in progress smoothly. The group consists of men and women households peasants participants with make a special herb under the supervision of the facilitator training, Yasfin a peasant who accompanied the of the Kudus, central Java during this agricultural practice has been successful in practicing natural farming in his place that is a dry land farming.

“From the beginning we should know how to farm like this, "said I Komang Warken, the leader of the Jembrana Peasant Union." In addition we may easily do not need to spend money if fertilizer get more expensive.

As well as Warken, Pak Barnop who became the chief of commitee also looks satisfied with the entire season of training.

"We have plant some formula that has been given a trainer, and we will check later and make further evaluation and planning," he said at the end of the event. And as said, even tough the closure of the training was heavy rain, it still recommend to make demoplot for each Seka peasant and will be the initial phase of experimentation before the end this pattern of agriculture is expected to apply for membership API Bali in particular and generally the peasants in the entire island blessed the gods is (Bali).

Our Seed, Our Sovereignty!

2009-02-08T10:34:00.003+07:00

Thursday, July, 28 2008

Some members have been reluctant to attend the meeting organization, "said Pak Suli, a member of the Tani Makmur peasant at the event documentary film" Our Seeds, Our Sovereignty” with staff API, IGJ and some Kibar activists in Kediri. This Film recounts the arrested peasant by the police regarding the case of corn seeds in the conflict of law against PT. Bisi Indonesia, a foreign company that produces hybrid corn seeds.

Asked the reasons why some members are reluctant to start to gather, Mr Suli only take a deep breathe, "as there are feelings of trauma and fear that if the override Pak Burhana will occur on themselves," answered. Burhana known as Pak is one of the farmer members of Farmers who had dealt with the court cases related to maize. Burhana and some farmers also entangled with the other article of Law number 12/1992 on Plant Cultivation System and plants certification with alleged illegal certification. Mr. one child is punishable by 5 months in prison.

Case seeds are then developed into important issue in the middle of a situation such as food handling at this time. In addition to keep supporting efforts to struggle through the advocacy and organizing work with the emphasis on work-productive API central also attempt to socialize the case of a network of farmers struggle in Indonesia and the parties' policy. Even the case was appointed as one of the points in the material meeting in Bonn, Germany.

In that regard, the API in cooperation with the Institute for Global Justice to produce a documentary movie entitled Our Seeds Our Sovereignty. The making of this movie is meant as one of the efforts so that cases that have hurt farmers can be accessed by many parties, so it will be important to encourage the alignment consideration of this country to the agricultural sector and the peasant as an ignored important sector.

"Peasants do not even benefit from the increase in world food prices at this time," said Lutfiyah Hanim, research advisors of API, when in a village in Bekasi Jaya Ocean. "First is the long chain of distribution between the urban consumers with producers in rural areas. So the profit on the price increase is usually from the seller and distributors, not from peasant. Second, the rice trade in the large-scale domination by a few traders, who control the distribution channels. Java, for example, which is the largest producer of rice occupied by less than five distributor / rice traders, "he added.

Meanwhile in a different time, Nuruddin, SekGen of API said, "If the peasants frightened to develop their own seed in an effort to cut dependency on the product manufacturer as was the effort to do the pattern of organic agriculture to cut dependency on chemical fertilizers is the same as prohibit state peasants to maintain a their own life that means also prohibit farmers become productive. Meanwhile, agriculture is the most potential sector. If the government gives emphasis to the press manufacturing sector regardless of the agricultural sector, not just the peasants who are economically disadvantaged, but even the country as a whole. Of a world food crisis is a sign that this sector should be more serious, and supported the government should be more proactive with the production side in the interests of peasant. If only a matter of seed peasant have to enter the prison, how they can support the production of food for our national interests also. "

The film is packed DVD is produced in a sizeable number of large, ie, 500 pieces and share good to the peasants themselves, NGOs, mass organizations and parties related. In this case we are very grateful to colleagues Kibar (Dian, David and others) that this is an intense struggle on the basis of peasant in Kediri and has a lot to provide access to information and other assistance to the making of the video.

The case also began being responded by many parties. Metro TV, for example has come to the secretariat of Tani Makmur, Kediri to make taking pictures and interviewing some of the peasants who become victims in these cases Bisi. The result was a feature of the conflict that was raised in the Oasis segment in Metro Reality ago on June 24. Here the impression synopsis titled Balada Corn Seeds are:

"Truly ironic! One farmer who has found corn seed who has founded must enter the prison because of the finding. That fate Tukirin, peasant corn who live in East Java Nganjuk. Tukirin the hereditary families of farmers and even this must be signed in prison because sued the development of a seed corn company, for allegedly impersonating formula has superior corn seeds that developed by the company.

Once out of the iron cells jail, Tukirin back farming, although still in the shadow of trauma due to the tragic fate he got with the prison entrance. Was it the portrait of world agriculture in Indonesia, where small farmers marginalized? ".

Revolusi Hijau Gagal Sejahterakan Petani

2009-02-08T03:23:00.003+07:00

The regime has been replaced, but the fate of peasants who are the biggest population in this republic was stay the same. In fact, Politic and national leadership reformation didn’t give any positive result with the peasant prosperity. They face never ending suffering and difficulties. it was not only from pressure inside but also over the length and breadth of pressure as like government and economical situation which were never on the peasant side.

The new order has taken this country into the development flow that focus on the growth and its follows bt the impact of the this scheme. One of it is to push this country to becomes industrial country.

As a consequence, the traditional agriculture was driven into the industrial agriculture. Which were in 1970s came to be called Green Revolution of Indonesia known as Bimas. The authority were flat out to makeof implement this program. Inside, there was subsidy for agriculture fertilizer credit, determining of row rice price, the established of Bulog, developing the irrigation system from foreign loan.

Unfortunately, in the Bimas program, the peasant was only viewed as the object that has always to obey the rulers’ will. The peasant no longer has the right to determining technology and production. Everything must be under the same roof, Bimas.

After Bimas consider failing to grow the food plant of agrarian sector, the government has introduced Inmas. With additional program of infectant and plant disease overcoming program, Inmas was actually almost the same with Bimas.

Inmas and Bima can be said as success if it was viewed from the applied growth paradigm. In the 1980s the productivity was rise up to double than in the 1960s. Moreover, in the 1985 Indonesia has become the rice self sufficient country for four years. But after that, this country back to become the biggest imported country until nowadays.

In the package regulation of Inmas and Bimas, the peasant order to obey those set in the production system. Applying chemical fertilizer, monoculture, certain label of seed, and standardized pesticide were all has made the peasant lie with seed, fertilizer and pesticide.

What made it worse was the diversity of local seed has no longer on the peasant hand. Before the green revolution, we had already almost 10.000 varieties of rice local seeds. All of the seeds that were kept in the IRRI (international Rice Research Institute) of Philippine now are belong to USA. Nowadays, those seeds were just for about 25 left in Indonesia.

The peasant’s wise were cut by the monoculture. Independency was replaced by the dependency. Social and environment equilibrium were disturbed through the use of chemical and inorganic materials as chemical fertilizer, insecticide, pesticide, fungicide, and herbicide.

Tens of years, the peasant were only fulfill the obligation by what the authority commanded trough the extended field officer and field officer for agriculture. The peasants were only as the program implementer on their own land. The common local leadership of peasant has been vanished and so the teaching and learning process among them. The traditional structure organization was gone became uniform. It was formed by the authority, not by their own awareness.

Tens of years, the peasant were became deafute that can only hear without speak up their mind. As a consequence, there were never existing strong, independent, solid and had a bargain position in making economical and political decision that fight for peasant prosperity of peasant organizations.

That situation was taking place up to now. Peasants were always being marginalized. They didn’t get their rights, not even the right for asking the rulers to fulfill their promised about the row rice price of the President Instruction.

Being introduced of the brand new seed was about to leaving the women’s role for selecting seed of farming effort in their household and so the for the harvest process, it was done mechanically.

Growth as the jargon of Development has born many problems. The hardest problem was lateral discrepancy between rural peasant and city society. The owner of new order regime always used trickle down effect theory to deceive of their regulation. It was stated that the prosperity of wealthy people in the city will trickle down to poor people both in the village and town.

Unfortunately, after new order regime has been replaced with transition regime, and now has become reformation regime, the trickle down has been promised did never exist. Moreover, the poor people prosperity even being adsorbed upward.

Watching these, it was clear that the policy of agriculture tend to run for citizen. For example in the policy of food sovereignty that oriented to fulfill achievable food needs mean that lower price oriented.

During the two harvests in 2000, peasants gain the price below the fixed price from the government. The price around was 700-900/kg for row rice price. In fact the government fixed price was among 1.020 to 1.065.

The low of row rice price for peasants mean the low of row rice and rise in the market.It is hard to be a peasant. This was reasonable when the harvest period the row rice stock was overload. Moreover there was still the stock from imported rice which was cheaper than local rice.

It is had to be peasants. We were often against to plant sugar cane just because w e wee cannot control the price, so when the harvest came there was only suffer and debt.

In fact, the governments can still taking hand on this matter if they were consequent and consistent with the approved policy. For instant, to stabilize the price in the year of 2000, government was able to buy just said about 10 million row rice for Rp 1.100/kg. It was means that for one cultivating time the government were only need to subsidize about Rp 11 quintillion, a very small amount than Rp 37.9 quintillion that the government has paid for banking recapitulation. Unfortunately the government was not did it.

Now the big question is back to this country, will the authority let the biggest past of this country (peasant) being marginalized? Whereas just by taking care of the peasant welfare, it will be able to grow the development of economic in the next day because they are the biggest part society in this lovely country.

(Outstanding article, food sovereignty)

Rights to Food

2009-02-08T03:05:00.002+07:00

By: Muhammad Nuruddin

Food 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).

Lengkong Peasants forced by company to “have no choice”

2009-02-07T23:30:00.004+07:00

[Monday, 21 January 2008] Cases of peasants and Lengkong citizens, Sukabumi, West Java reached culmination. After the long struggle to maintain the land and houses which claimed as the property of PT. Duren Estate, now the only remaining population no more than twenty people evicted to find a new place to live outside the area of the home because their houses demolished by force with the treatment haphazardly. Instead, they get the support promised compensation fund of 7 million rupiah per person. While the other is' surrender 'first only get 2 million only.

The bitter pill swallowed by the peasants is associated with a variety of pressure and intimidation that back-stopping all by plantation security with the direct backed up and undisguised by officers from local police. Even up to this news was revealed, Anda - one of the people arrested since a few months ago - at this time still in detention without any clarity when will be release.

While, the amount of compensation 7 million rupiah finally agreed after passing through the complex process of bargaining. It’s recognized that the involvement of the National commission of human rights and Farmers Alliance Indonesia (API) to take a significant role in the settlement of the case.

"Our energy taken discharged, while we must face our daily needs," said Pak Amas seen often coordinate national secretariat in the API. "many people have no resistance to the pressure of people who are fearless putting pressure . Our people in a weak position, so that some of us just follow the rules now.

In a meeting held at the Komnas Ham (National commission of human right) meet the peasants and companies, and witnessed by two personnel API, the company pledged to deliver compensation to the residents and is ready to help the process of move them to a new place. "We will help, it is important that all will be completed in here and they do not go to our region, "said a representative of PT. Duren Estate.

According to the plan on 28 January 2008, the twentieth person will sign an agreement on compensation in the Sukabumi district hall. Regent own scheduled future following a promise said some time before that the government will help the cost of education the peasants’ children and the provision of public facilities. The event will also be attended by the police station Komnas, and API as organization represented by Nuruddin general secretary of Indonesian Peasant Alliance as a witness.

Is it true that the Lengkong peasants have no more choice so except the compensation?"It is not because we don’t have choices, but we are forced to have no choice," they said with a bitter tone.

Agrarian Reform as a Precondition of Food Sovereignty

2008-09-16T10:43:00.002+07:00

Jakarta, Indonesia (12 Sep 2008) — In line with 5th year of the death of Lee Kyung Hae, a South Korean Farmer who committed suicide in Cancun, Mexico during the Ministerial Meeting of WTO in 2003, API held a reflection-discussion at National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) office in Jakarta on September 10, 2008. “Agrarian Reform as a Precondition of Food Sovereignty” was the theme of the reflection-discussion.

Fifty participants from many civil organizations such as SPI,Agra, SPP, and Pergerakan attended the discussion, while NGOs such as Bina Desa, KPA, Walhi, IGJ, Elsam, PBHI, and Sawit Watch also sent their representatives to participate in the event; National Commission on Human Rights and students participated as well. But none of politicians who were invited to the discussion came. Some indicated that it is obvious that recently some politicians seem not sensitive to respond crucial issues of the nation.

The discussion started with video clip presentation of the movement against liberalization of agriculture and the death of Lee Kyung Hae in Cancun, which subsequently followed by the commemoration ceremony of Lee, then video presentation with theme of state and corporations violence on Langkat peasants (API’s member in North Sumatra Province).

Mr. Gunawan Wiradi, one of the resource persons at the discussion stated that agrarian problem is the most complicated issue since it involves many stakeholders where the role of military is very urgent to be considered.

“To achieve the agrarian reform, slowly we need to include military to participate,” Mr. Wiradi said. “Military is a key actor during the independence struggle era long time ago. When we were at the guerilla, peasants provided the army free foods for nine months in the villages while the state in disadvantages!”.

The senior lecturer also criticized the ineffectiveness role of National Commission on Human Rights. According to Mr. Wiradi, National Commission on Human Rights has been handling the agrarian conflicts slowly for one case solved another case comes. The violence against peasants still keeps going on many places. Then he suspected that there is a political interest intricate in such agrarian cases.

Mr. Jhoni Simanjuntak, a commissioner of National Commission on Human Rights who handle the violence cases against peasants then subsequently responded the statement mentioned. “We are not slow in dealing with the case by case. But we have to thoroughly think and strategize the way we solve the problems more comprehensively,” the commissioner explained. “It’s also been our consideration at the Commission. It is the situation on location that demanded us to handle the problem case by case. This doesn’t mean that the Commission doesn’t have vision in solving the problems within a grand framework and with efficient way”.

Mr. Saiful Bahari, other resource person, elaborated that agrarian conflicts cannot be separated from the form and character of power and political economic system that has been developing so far. There is a lack of attention on the agrarian cases and its relationship with the tendency to politic that need to be a profound assessment. Most attention concentrates on the case resolution and not in the grand framework of the case itself and the relationship with political map tend as well.

“I encourage all of us to put the agrarian reform movement on the broad and contextual perspective,” Mr. Saiful Bahari added. “We need a clear movement blueprint. Without the change on the character of power in the middle of such neoliberalism recently, we can’t operate the movement”.

Agustiana, the Secretary General of Petani Pasundan who came later added that the more aggressive of the police involved in agrarian cases is very obvious. The police are now in the position of facing the peasants directly in the fields, violating them while eagerly protecting the interests of corporations. Agustiana stated that the National Agrarian Reform Program as a confusing problem.

“Does the police institution have nothing else to do or they are playing a certain mindset?” Agustiana said. “This institution seems to be afraid of nothing. They do violence against peasants over and over. In many land conflicts there have been so many wrong people detained. National Commission on Human Rights has to be firmed on this situation. It should not only use the media in the process, but should ask for legitimate of Indonesian peasants’ movement. Not only giving the violators punishment at media level, but it also has to punish them politically and juristically”.

The discussion got more interesting in gaining the feedback from the floor. The participants were mostly interested in discussing strategy in handling agrarian cases, and criticized the measures taken in the fields and experienced by peasants. They hope in the future agrarian reform networking will stronger and synergy; therefore it will strengthen bargaining position of peasants struggle at power level and at political economic policy system of the nation.

The discussion ended with break the fasting of all participants, continued by informal discussion on the plan of agrarian reform networking meeting that will be held next day at Walhi office in Jakarta. The meeting will invite several peasants’ organizations and NGOs.

Internet for Farmer

2008-03-04T15:05:00.002+07:00

Based on the endeavor to enhance farmers and their households’ capacity to access to information technology (IT), API in cooperation with Formasi Indonesia has been conducting Community Training Center (CTC) Program starting from August 2007. The objective of the program is to develop human resources in order to empower farmers’ economy. The program has been executed in six (6) location of six peasant unions member of API. The centers (CTCs) among others are located at: 1. Sekretariat API Bali at Jl. Banyubiru No. 289 Dusun Airanakan Banyubiru, Negara Jembrana Bali 82251. 2. ORTATA (Organisasi Taloa) at Jl. Sultan Kharuddin No. 28 Sumbawa Besar. 3. Sekretariat Paguyuban Petani Cianjur (PPC) 1 at Jl. Pagelaran No. 43 Cianjur. 4. Sekretariat Paguyuban Petani Cianjur (PPC) at Jl. Pangeran Hidayatullah No. 142 Desa Limbangan Sari RT 02 RW 13 Cianjur. 5. Himpunan Petani dan Nelayan Pakidulan (HPNP) at Jl. Merdeka KMP Situgede Wetan No. 18 RT/RW 02/06 Desa Cipanengah Kec. Lembur Situ Kota Sukabumi. 6. Kelompok Petani Perempuan Saluyu (PPPS) at Jl. Kp. Cisaat RT 01/01 Desa Caringin Kec. Kab. Sukabumi Jawa Barat 43359.

Since most API’s members are located in village level and are being unconnected by telephone lines, the networking of API’s CTCs are mostly located in districts areas. Therefore the unions’ secretariat at district will be the proper alternative as a center (CTC). For instance, CTC Ortata (Organisasi Taloa) in Sumbawa where located in Sumbawa Besar District is still hard to get internet access. The center uses telephone through satellite connection so it often disconnected suddenly while it operates the activity. But this condition is not a main problem to the operators at the CTC. In contrast, it is quite easier to other five centers (CTCs) in other places such as PPC 1 (Cianjur Peasants Union) that has better internet access through “speedy” provider even sometimes they still find a trouble in connecting.

Since the places where the participants live are geographically quite in remote areas, some peasants who participate in the training held at the CTCs (actually is API’s local secretariat at district level) have to stay 2-3 days. Indeed, they spend the time efficiently and make it very useful. They maximize the CTC very well. In other hand, even the students are still the most users of internet access, the CTC in Cianjur has also open to public not only peasants for internet access. The peasants are getting more benefits from the CTC.

The beneficiaries from 6 CTC show their enthusiasms. This appeared in preliminary discussion with the communities which attended by API’s staff of national secretariat. This indicates that the peasants need the information technology. They also actively participated in the management and setting up the places of trainings which were actually the secretariats of local peasants organizations are at district level. The activities are such as installment of the equipments, buildings paintings, and re-decorate and layout of the venue.

Komnas HAM Came to Lengkong

2008-03-04T10:31:00.003+07:00

API Jakarta: September 13th, 2007.
Nelson Simanjuntak and two staffs of Human Right National Commission (Asri and Mimin) did on investigation to Kampung Jaya Mukti, Lengsar Kecamatan Simpenan, Sukabumi west Java, Fuad Bahari and Rifai from national office of API accompanied them. Their journey should be started at 2 p.m. It was because of some obstacles, they went at 4.45 p.m.

Route to Kampung Jaya Mukti spend 5 hours for normal journey. However, they arrived at 11.15 p.m. people who had been waiting for them were around 35 persons. Female and children were also welcoming them. After taking some pictures, they conducted some discussions and dialogues. It was lead directly by Joni Nelson Simanjuntak and Fuad from API as facilitated it. Firstly, the discussion was started by some introduction to create closely situation, because the situation was so strained to dig up the current issues, Human Right National Commission particularly conducted direct interview exclusively to the people around there.

While the two staffs were conducting exclusive interview, the discussion and the dialogue which were conducted by villagers, human right National Commission, and API run seriously. Joni asked some question such as when villagers occupied the land farm, how many land could be used for farming, what kind of plant could be planted by farmer, etc.

After Joni Nelson Simanjuntak tried to make sure some people that human right National Commission would conduct some monitoring related to overcome those issues, human Right National Commission was asking to the villagers to support their action related to information transformation.

At 02.05 a.m. sharp, the discussion was closed because human right national commission had a meeting with the chief of police district of Sukabumi on 14 September, in Pelabuhan Ratu.

Around 10.00 a.m. 6 securities and 2 cop came to Kampung, they didn't do anything, they just sat and walked around Mrs. Opah Nurlatipah's house, (Mr. Ana's Wife, Mr. Ana was arrested by police), Few minutes later, API received some information by phone from human right national commissions. They told that the result of their meeting with chief of police district was the rejection that police district arrested Ana and others inhumanity they told that it was not true, Ana and other were being arrested when they had a pray. The chief of police district said that Ana was arrested after praying, when he worn Moslem costume, Ana tried to be free and the clothes were out. At present, the chief of police district would not take his personnel's out as long as it was handled by Human Right National Commissions.

There is not any progression to this issue at present ... (Dzi)
Source: API assistance)

Food Reflection

2008-03-04T10:26:00.001+07:00

API thanked to The Indonesian Legal Aid and Human Right Association (PHBI) which had already written the chronological facts about normative meaning of food sovereignty that correlated to the chronological events and facts of an organization of United Nation about university of human right, especially Ecosob right and agrarian conflict record. It caused of poverty in the villages related to sectarian policy and asked for the government's responsibility, particularly, the responsibility for giving human right to citizen, such as food and land sovereignty. I was very important because 70% of Indonesian were farmers.

Some experiences showed that both before and after human right declaration was signed, much impunity, genocide, razes, issue, conflict among countries caused of ideology, religion, and poverty had been accruing. Those affect the greediness of industrial countries to exploit natural resources in sour then world where the development countries were located.

Food day on 16 October, 2006 was celebrated by people all over the world. FAO took the theme "Investing in agriculture for food security". This theme it was translated into "develop village based food independent". It was done by Indonesian agriculture department.
Themes of world food day were about poverty, hunger and food security. Critics related to that concept were delivered by La via Compesina who used theme "food sovereignty". The people around the world were 6.5 billion. It would increase became 8.5 billion in 2025. Could our earth give enough food for those people?
The fact shows that every seven minutes, children under ten die because of hunger and 840 million people suffer worst nutrition. What are the causes?

a. Production resources, such as soil, water, plants, fish, and air were polluted because to much fertilized and chemical pesticide that used for farming
b. Distraction and the decreasing support for agriculture, such as irrigation of 40% to 60%
c. Narrower of farm or farm conversion to non agriculture which increase rapidly
d. Demography pressure, because they try to have 16 species for food panting. However, there are 3000 species.
e. Effects of politic protection and subsidy. Powerful countries have food surplus. Letter on, they distribute it to the market by using dumping price. For food import countries, this condition is beneficial.
f. The effects for development counties by using the same commodity will give disadvantages.

Firstly, it is the impact of food import is so cheap, local farmer products are not competitive. The effect which taken by government is to import almost every thing by creating some reasons. Food is import substitution commodity that gives foreign exchange income. It is very important for farmers and millions of workers to continue their life.
World condition shows the increase of food needs. 85% of food needs come from development and poor countries. The increase of food production comes from powerful countries because they hold 65% of food growth due to technology improvement and genetic manipulation.

That situation has correlation to food sovereignty in development countries. Food needs influence world food movement. The market condition in the world can be explained by demand (the change of rice market). Table I explained how those changes in the best ten countries related to the production, import and export happen. The table also explained that rice producers, importer and exporter in international market don't have a change (look at the list the best ten countries in producing, importing and exporting in huge scale at FAO database).
Background that explained how Indonesian government to be dominant importer in the world was could be explained in negotiation process to IMF in 1997. IMF pressured Indonesian government to create many kinds of price control and distribution control to all agriculture products were deleted, import limitation of agriculture products was also deleted, and did some privacy to Bulog.

That process was write a Memorandum of Economic and Financial policy (MEFP) that published integrate to Letter of Intent (LOI) between Indonesian government and IMF on 31 October, 2007. On 41st paragraph it is content of structural reformation and privatization in MEFP. Indonesian government would not control agriculture rice concept rice, sugar and tobacco price. On first January 2007, rice, sugar and tobacco price were increased due to IMF intimidation. Those report occurred integrate with MEFP's signature on 24 June, 1998.

Food is import commodity and Indonesian foreign exchange resource. However, it depends on millions of Indonesian's farmers and workers; the impact of neo-liberal policy is poverty and hunger for Indonesian.

For Food: Strategy to Agrarian Reform
Food is primary needs for human being; therefore, food issues are so closed to individual, family, and society (human right). Food sovereignty is nation's right. Monopoly and exploitation for food are not relevant to human right.

Nation food sovereignty can be realized by available food and nutrition. Nevertheless, supporting aspects such as producing, distributing and consuming for food, on the other side, it impacts to level of society's ability in consuming, the condition of individual and family. Accessibility everyone to food, related to give a change for everyone and family to get food.
The important thing of nation food sovereignty is how a country fulfills food needs for its citizen, especially for poor one based on the food's quantity, quality, price, continuity, and stability. The facts show that it isn't all of countries; particularly for the poor one has food right to consume it.

In Indonesian, basic fundamental to realize right of food is done by agrarian reformation for little family and poor farmers. How come? Dominant reason is to increase little farmers about 2.6%. It increases from 18.8 million of little farmers in 1993 to 13.7 millions. 24.3 millions of farmers to use land based farmers, 20.1 millions (82.7%) are poor ones. Most of Indonesian poor farmers are planting rice/Khudori's plants (Opinion section, Kompas, January 8, 2007 edition)

Is this condition a basic for Indonesian government to import 2 millions ton of rice per year? If the answer is "yes" it means that Indonesian government has lied and broken Ecosoc right because the equivalency of 2 millions tons of rice is 6 million/ha which is needed by 666.000 little farmers.

Based on import budget, Indonesian government can allocated the budget for agrarian reformation in villages. However, Indonesian government is trapped to free trade orientation because financial architecture and politician do not intent to realize agrarian reformation. Based on those chronological facts, it can be concluded policy force through a chain packet that is offered by multilateral financial department is human right violation. However, who are brief persons to against the core power of world capitalism (World Bank and IMF)?

A book written by PHBI team (Food sovereignty Assistance) is too closed to the politics judicial frame work of both international and national low. Actually, there is situation of law in Indonesia. If the writing is completed by sociology and anthropology analysis, it will be rich sense that view disable situation and the limitation happened to farmers and little farmers.

Green revolution failure to increase rice production and farmers earning explained us related to the lackness of Indonesian government's sense about which Indonesian farmers were. Indonesian farmers ha already trained to face the economic pressure. It has happened since Japanese exploitation in Indonesia. It was true that 28th generation had based on UUPA No. 5 1960 to carry out our agriculture industrial politic media. Next generation (45th generation) had established economic foundation by using foreign investment strategy. It started to exploit cognitive. Japanese exploitation generation was forced to learn dualism economics. Firstly, it attempted modern agriculture for export. Next, it attempted subsistent agriculture. Dutch colonial spirit was also written in water power resource law, forestry law, mining law, and capital investment law.

When it was a forced planting, dualism has built in economics and socials in farmers; life. It had already accrued. In economic, both modern-exports based colonial farming and traditional farming did not run equivalently. In society, it impacted dualism life style. Those were Dutch and Indonesian one.

Forced planting system did not delete the dualism such as deleting conventional agriculture system. However, it had used at present. One way to do so was to manage farmer work system and conventional agriculture's land. Therefore, conventional social-economic supported colonial economic. Traditional life style supported commercial export based modern economic.

Why did economic need traditional economic-social? It was a Dutch's strategy to expand its colonial economic (it was caused the export commodity in the world was high). Traditional social-economic was easily contaminated (land mobilization and workers) to joint the expansion. If the situation was changed, the weakness of colonial economic (it was caused of world price fluctuation) would substitute by reinforcing traditional, traditional farming was necessary variable (Diah Laksmi, Javanese Farmer Strategy, Free Journals).

In this case, we understand the circumstance of Indonesian Agriculture policy which tries to contaminate Indonesia villagers. The price should be paid is proved by the increasing of poor citizen, limited food in wide spectrum in the society. It is not different to the forced planting system, just like a song "you make it started. You make it finished), you make a promise. You betray it or similar spirit, but different.
By Muhammad Nuruddin, He is API's General Secretary. This Journal is taken from a journal which is delivered by book exhibition Right to Food from justifiability of Agrarian Reform, by PHBI and University of Oslo, Norwegian.

EPA

2008-03-04T10:19:00.001+07:00

Two days after independent day celebration, the flag had been rising, the celebration atmosphere was being felt, and everyone had been talking about the independent day.

In Indonesian capital, there was a guess Japanese prime minister, Shizo Abe came. He came to sign the Economic Partnership Agreements/EPA) Indonesia-Japanese. The question was "did Shinzo Abe and EPA come to refresh Indonesia to have real independent: people's welfare?

In the world Trade Agreement, EPA agreement model came lately. Before EPA, there had been bilateral/regional FTA agreement. The appearance both EPA and FTA were the impact of multilateral free trade agreement on WTO. In the minister conference Hong Kong 2005, it had been arranged that long term trade negotiation was ready to sign.

Finally, complete agreement couldn't realize. Unfinished agreement or forward agreement was forced to get deal. Previous meeting failure such as Seatle, AS, cancan and Mexico were a nightmare. Thousands farmers who were controlled by La Via Compesina world farmer movement delegitimated WTO concretely.

On Jully 2006, WTO's office in Jenewa, Switzerland, WTO ministerial meeting (G4) was failed to get deal, Pascal Lamy who was nomor one person in WTO said freeze negotiation was unlimited. More than a year, the next meeting was conducted in German and the negotiation was stagnant.

Industrial countries and transnational companies thought that EPA and FTA were the solutions of WTO negotiation stagnation. Based on the recorded data, EPA and FTA agreement were being conducted among industrial countries and development countries which did not have economic situation balancely. For instance, EPA proposal among European Union and African Countries and Caribbean, FTA agreement between Thailand and USA, South Korean and USA, FTA ideas among European Union and ASEAN.
Those imbalances showed that free trade in EPA, FTA and WTO frameworks were part of economic domination projects. Based on those projects, nucleus-periphery dependency regime grew up continually and perfectly.

In Japan-Indonesian economic bilateral case, "the elder brother "(Japan) was a Indonesian biggest foreign benefactor both directly and via media mechanism such as Asia development bank. Those debts were completed by number of development policies; it made Indonesian development was reflected for giant company's needs than civilization.

After signing EPA, the negotiation such as debt was much easier than before. Some trade obstacles which were agreed, were deleted Indonesian government agreed to deleted 95% of 11.163 agreements, unfortunately, the economic partnership content was trade liberalization and investment.

Everyone thought that Indonesia-Japanese EPA cooperation would have many advantages. This view was based on the facts. Indonesian trade was surplus US$ 10 billions so fat. Actually, the data was not wrong. However, we hadn't accounted how much net foreign exchange our country was received. It had to remember that trade cooperation between Indonesia and Japan was dominated by fuel export. There were other export commodities; however it was not national economic capacity preview. It was done by some big companies from Japan.

In agriculture sector of Indonesia and Japan, and in signed agreement EPA, there were serious problems. In Japan, since, since Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi was a leader, agriculture sector was defeated by industrial policies. Although Japan had high technology, free trade made it could not do anything, moreover for farmer family.
Un sovereign
La Via Campesina small farmers meeting in Roma, Yoshitaka Mashima was one of the leader of Nouminren family farmer movement, said that local production fulfilled the first meal. Second meal used import food.
"Actually, our country produced Toyota, Mitsubishi and other products. However, we didn't have food sovereignty," he stated.

Millions of Indonesian little farmer had similar situation, just like in Japan. They were suffered by EPA agreement, because agriculture export foreign exchange was not for farmers, little farmers and little fisherman. It was for agribusiness companies. The increasing of Indonesian agriculture export was not completed by farmers' welfare. Every their landforms was dominated by those companies.

For millions people of both Indonesian and Japan, possible thing to do was to deligitimate EPA agreement. The agreement was the manifestation of agribusiness companies. EPA was not people wish in both countries. Hence, both Indonesia and Japan government didn't have legitimating to sign the agreement.
Actually, colonialism and neo-colonialism were not different. Both were against to the Indonesian Independent's soul.
Resource:http://indoprogress.blogspot.com/2007/08
Created by Tejo Pramono, Committee of Internatioanal Little Farmers movement organization La Via Campesina, Jakarta.
*This article, in different version, it was on Indonesian Business magazine before, on August 24, 007.

Hibrid, NO!

2008-03-04T10:10:00.004+07:00

On September 28, 2007, API head official received an email from farming organization which was located in Jombang region API East Java. The letter was for API Head official. It was suggested that API should ask to its linked organization in countries to say "No" to Hybrid seeds which was given by government to the farmers. It was because today, government didn't bother farmers. Farmers were suffered and only depended to the country. We had to do an action to receive a help but didn't receive Hybrid".

Based on the situation above, the similar event also occurred in Malang, East Java. A news came from Antara, was caught by Kompas on September 24, 2007. The title was "Hybrid" Paddies seeds given by Government were not properly planted.

The report was:
Malang, Monday - Hybrid Paddy germs given by Government Gading Kecamatan Tajinan: Sunarto, on Monday, told that the damage occurred because hybrid Paddy seeds were contaminated by Valandra and louses.
The hybrid paddy seeds were given by Government on September 20, 2007. It was given to the farmer's organization which won CV. Sawunggaling project. The firm was located on Bebek Street III RT03/02 Waru, Sidoarjo.

The hybrid paddy germ's brands were Beras Super and Beras Prima. It was covered in two kind of package. Each package was one kilogram of Beras Super and two kilogram of Beras Prima. Both kinds of hybrid paddy seeds were damage.
"There were many holes in the package and didn't have any empty air. Actually, hybrid seeds should be placed in an empty air package. When the package was opened, there were many louses and Valandra, the seeds were damage "the said.

Sunarto said, "After he knew the germs condition, he was testing by soaking the seeds for 24 hours. The hybrid seeds which were damage could not grow up properly. There were much seeds were floated. The farmers whom he led got 195 kilograms of hybrid seeds.
"If the hybrid seed's condition was not good, it is possible for the seeds grew only 70% per a kilogram of hybrid seeds. Therefore, we needed a change, otherwise, farmers and government would suffer", he said.

Chief of farmer association Collaboration (Gapoktan) Kecamatan Tajinan, Kabupaten Malang, Jumain said "a planting season September 2007, there were six villages that given hybrid seeds. There were Randu Gading, Tangkil Sari, Ngawongo, Tambak Asri, Jambu Arjo and Pandan Mulyo village.

Hybrid paddy seeds which were received by Kecamatan Tajinan were 2205 kilograms. It would be planted in 147 ha of rice field. 15 kilogram seeds would be planted per ha. Total rice fields of Kecamatan Tajinan were 400 ha. It needed 600 kilograms of paddy seeds.

"We had coordinated to all of farmer's groups in Kecamatan Tajinan. All of farmers' groups received the same hybrid paddy seeds. There were Valandra and other plant disease. Nevertheless, we would send complain letter to get the new seeds". He said.

He argued, "If it was not changed, planting season would be delayed. While the farmers were waiting for other paddy seeds from government, the planting season was delayed. Therefore, it was hopefully CV. Sawunggaling had to substitute the damage paddy seeds".

The chief of B commission, Malang Regional Legislative Assembly, Choirul Anam said that he received the information that hybrid paddy seeds given by government for September 2007 planting reason were damaged. It happened to other, regions of Malang such as Bantur.
`Government budget for hybrid paddy seeds was 9.1 billions rupiahs. Based on present situation, was the high budget enough? We suggested to the providers (CV. Sawunggaling red) to substitute the seeds. The farmers were suffered". He said.
Whole of damage hybrid paddy seeds would be replaced by the new ones in a week, because if would be planted on this month. If the seeds could not be replaced soon, the planting season would be delayed on October.
"Based on this situation, paddy surplus target in Malang region (24,000 tons) was not realized completely. Therefore, we suggested to Gapoktan to send complain letter to Malang Agriculture Official". He explained.