The Planter's Mind

Agrarian reform is not limited in redistribution or land reform, but it is also related to other productive agrarian resources like already mention above. In our opinion, to build Indonesian agriculture towards food sovereignty, the seed industry is a major point to be fulfilled by an agrarian country. The peasants said that by extending the land we do not need intensification and overuse of input. In the context of seed, if there is no eminent seed from the factory, we can develop our own local based eminent seed. It has been noted that there are thousands of food crops variety that are ready to grown in Indonesia, but it does not have the government support. We tend to react responsively and not suitable with the peasants’ needs, it leads to many import cases (import in rice, seed, fertilizer, pesticide). Besides dried up the state budget, it is also unsustainable because import seed threaten the local, self-developed seed. And weaken the developing of seed in local level.

Second, regarding the agricultural mode of production. Our agricultural sector is strongly based on agribusiness model that mainly consider the economic scale of agriculture. And practice has cause misunderstanding at the local level. In the case of seed, to pursue benefits the peasants are persuaded with high production so they are willing to use hybrid seed. In several cases, Department of Agriculture and PPL are becoming the sales for company made hybrid seed.

Although in the field, hybrid seed is not instantly give higher production and benefit to the peasants. The colonial legacy of mode of production is also become heavy burden for the peasants, especially because the peasants are continuously become the end-user. They must buy all the input, from seed, fertilizer to toxic (pesticide/herbicide). As the consequences the peasants become dependent-and instead of getting profit, they have to endure the loss. In Karawang, Subang and Cirebon FSPI members are heavily indebted because they choose this mode of production. From FSPI study, it is noted that the average 45.4 per cent of the peasants’ capital especially in rice are spent to buy the expensive input including seed, fertilizer and toxic.

Not even a cent of the profit from these agribusiness mode of production receive by the peasants, on the other side the profit goes to big companies which produce agrochemical. At the international level, there are Dupont, Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer, Limagrain, Dow and Aventis which control over 7.215 billion US$ per year! The player in Indonesia is more over the same. The main seed producers in Asia-including Indonesia- are Bayer, Dupont, East-West Seeds, Monsanto, Syngenta, that constantly taking the profit and suck the profit from our peasants.

These cases erase the local wisdom and Indonesian culture in the agrarian sector. In the old days, farming does not require lot of capital. By control all the agrarian resources including seed at the local level, peasants can effectively and efficiently run their family based farming. These days, the alternative mode of production that offer seed at local level, seed trading, seed bank seed breeding based on local wisdom has been started in several places. The organic farming can also become a choice because it only needs minimum inputs while still keeping the productivity.

Third, regarding development priority. In the long term, the seed industry (eminent) must be put in the agrarian development working plan. With 44 per cent of the labor force work in agricultural sector, supported with natural condition, cultural legacy and the huge need of food in Indonesia, it is right for the country to see agriculture as the priority of development. On the contrary, agriculture and the peasants in Indonesia that are dominated by small producers (subsistence, peasants and farm labor) are at the critical condition. It is evidence when we see from the state budget allocation (APBN), agriculture along with forestry and fishery only given budget allocation of 10.5 trillion rupiahs. Compare to industrial, constraction, transportation and other sector of economy (26.2 trillions) or the estate sector (32.7 trillions).

Therefore, in the seed issue FSPI sees that:
• (a) Generating an eminent seed, must be based on the peasants need and seeing the peasants as the subjects, and not just merely an end-user or consumer.
• (b) State must produce its own eminent seed; it can be by creating state-owned company or seed cooperative that will control to the distribution in local level. Do not let the seed controlled by the giant companies.
• (c) If the seed stock is not sufficient yet like the reason of this recent import, the state should give time limit until when the import period is put into effect. It is useful to set up the target of seed supply sovereignty for the sake of Indonesian agriculture development. For example seed import can be put into effect for several years (3 to 5 years), after that it has to be sovereign!
• (d) Start build seed bank or seed exchange at local level based on local knowledge and culture and mutual benefits (gotong royong)
• (e) And last, the agricultural sector must be the priority of development. With fertile ground, abundance water resources and biodiversity, this gemah ripah loh jinawi (prosperous) country is really visible to making agriculture as its economic base. People and state must be sovereign and have the control over agricultural sector from on-farm to off-farm. Quoting Sajogyo, our agriculture sociologist expert, seed, as one of the final product from the agrarian industry must be owned by the peasants!

Further contact:
Henry Saragih (FSPI General Secretary); 0816 31 44441,
Achmad Ya’kub (Deputy of Policy Research and Campaign); 0817 712347
Mohammed Ikhwan (Coordinator of Centre for FSPI Policy Research and Study); 0819 320 99596
Source : http://fspi.or.id

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