AGRICULTURE AND ECONOMY OF INDONESIA

Introduction to Agriculture in Indonesia. Indonesia is a country with a

very good agricultural condition. With such a fertile land, it is possible for us
to plant and grow almost all kinds of fruits, vegetables, and other plants.
Thats why Indonesia is well known as an agrarian nation, a country that
highly depends on agriculture as its primary means for support and
sustenance. The society in Indonesia also acknowledges other means of
livelihood and work habits, but stresses the importance of agriculture and
farming.
As an agrarian nation, the agriculture sector plays an important role in
ensuring the life of the nations society, and even the nation itself. Most of
the nations income comes from this sector. Also, there are so many farmers
in Indonesia. To make it clearer, agriculture sector in Indonesia has a role in:

providing job opportunity for the majority of labor force

producing foods for nation
raw material producer for industrial sector
strengthening food security and rural development

Agriculture sector plays even more important role when Indonesia is in

the middle of a crisis. Soekarno stated that agriculture is the life and death of
Indonesia.
One of the most valuable agriculture commodity in Indonesia is rice.
Most of land in Indonesia is covered by rice fields. If we go to rural areas in
this nation, we can easily find rice fields, with farmers working on the fields.
The total area of rice field in Indonesia is about 7,8 hectares, including
irrigated, rain fed, tidal, and deep water. Rice production stock dominantly
supported by irrigated rice field (60,3%) and rain fed rice field (26,5%)
(2006). Based on the statistics, 41% of rice field are located in Java and the
other 59% are located outside Java (2006). Beside rice, there are also other
valuables commodities such as corn, coconut, peanut, green bean,
cinnamon, etc. The Strength and Weakness
Looking at the land condition in Indonesia, it is totally a great
opportunity to maximize its income from agriculture sector. With good
treatment and development, there are no doubts that Indonesia will be able
to maximize its agriculture sector at the highest level. Indonesia has around
47,6 million hectares in cultivated surface area and 4,5 million hectares in
irrigated surface area. The tropical climate that Indonesia has ensures crops
to be grown all year round. And also, it is possible to grow almost all kinds of
crops in Indonesia. There have been so many contributions given by
agriculture sector for this nation. For example, Indonesia achieved self-

sufficiency in rice production by the mid-1980s - that was during the

governance of the 2nd President of Indonesia, Soeharto. He focused the
nations development to agriculture sector. Hes the one who made the food
revolution in Indonesia, so that during his era Indonesia was able to achieve
self-sufficiency in rice production. Because of this achievement, Soeharto
was able to increase the life standard of the society and save Indonesia from
economical crisis. Because of the big effort, traditionally a rice importing
nation, Indonesia may export as many as 2 million tons of rice in 2009, the
most in at least 50 years. Only a year removed from importing 800,000 tons
of rice in order to meet consumption, Indonesia is on the pace to have the
large surplus ever.
Another contributor beside rice is coconut.
Coconut is one of many commodities which is a great contributor for the
nations income that can be relied on. We can see this from the export rate
of coconut which reaches the number of US$11,61 billion, increased 17,75%
or US$2,5 million from last years rate. Indonesia is one of the biggest
coconut-producing countries in the world. Indonesia has a total coconut area
of 8.04 million hectares with 19,76 million tons production of CPO (crude
palm oil) in 2010.
From the facts listed above, we can conclude that agriculture sector is
a great source of income for Indonesia. Agriculture sector is the third biggest
source of income for Indonesia, which accounts 16.5% of Indonesias
income/GDP (2010). The largest account is from industry sector (46.4%)
followed by services (37.1%). However, since 2010, the agriculture sector
has employed more people (38.3% of labor force) than industry sector
(12.8% of labor force). And agriculture, however, had been the countrys
largest employer for centuries. So, there is a big chance for the government
to improve this sector to get more income. Still, there are also some
weaknesses regarding to the agriculture sector in Indonesia. The weaknesses
are much more focused to the development itself. The development of
agriculture sector in the past had some weaknesses such as only focused on
farming, low support of macro policies, and centralistic approach. Because of
that, the agriculture business (especially farming) nowadays are dominated
by businesses with: low scale
low-to-limited capital
simple technology
highly influenced by season local market area generally use family workers
conversion from farming land to non-farming land etc. Not only that, there
are also other problems. In Indonesia, its a fact that the government dont
care too much about farmers. We can see it from these things: abandoned
farm and village infrastructures government dont care about urbanization
low life standard in village increased price of fertilizer, but decreased selling
price for commodities the importing policy of agriculture products, without
making any efforts to increase the amount and quality of the products
farmers have low knowledge about farming technologies and many other

problems that cant be listed all Looking at this situation, there are a lot
things to do, to heal the agriculture sector in Indonesia. Government should
have given more care/treatments for agriculture workers, especially farmers.
Government should look at Vietnam and Thailand. The government on both
countries really takes serious actions in order to improve their agriculture
sector. They make policies that support the local farmers. Because of that,
both countries are now two of biggest rice exporters in the world. While
Indonesia, in the other hand, becomes the biggest importer of rice in the
world (14% of rice traded in world market), even though Indonesia is the
third biggest producer of rice in the world (54 million metric tons, 2005).
Also, the government should make policies that really support farmers and
other agriculture sector workers, such as lowering the amount of agriculture
product imports, intensifying agriculture sector improvements and
developments, subsidizing the price of fertilizers, give counseling and
training for farmers and other agriculture sector workers, give incentives to
boost productivity of farmers, etc. The government itself should interact
actively and often with farmers to stimulate the paradigm and mentality if
farmers to become superior farmers. If the government is not reliable
anymore, farmers should go on their own. They better do self-government
actions to free themselves from government dependency, whatever the
action is. For that, they need help from the experts, whether they are food
and plant experts, marketing experts, management experts, or other related
experts, that want to work voluntarily to save this country, whether they
work individually or in an organization, whether they are from Indonesia or
other countries. We cannot let this country destroyed because a handful of
people in the government.

Sources
http://tepekur.blogspot.com/2012/03/selamatkan-industripangan-indonesia.html

http://internationalbusiness.wikia.com/wiki/Agriculture_as_a_Strength

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_producing_countries_of_agricultur
al_commodities
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suharto
http://paskomnas.com/id/berita/Kondisi-Pertanian-Indonesia-saat-iniBerdasarkan-Pandangan-Mahasiswa-Pertanian-Indonesia.php
http://www.asiaecon.org/special_articles/read_sp/12048
http://www.studymode.com/essays/Role-Agriculture-Indonesia-EconomicDevelopment-170736.html