Food Sovereignty: Conditions of the Peasants and the Movement

1. Food Sovereignty: Conditions of the Peasants and the Movement Erpan Faryadi AGRA Secretary General and APC Vice-chair for Internal Affairs Paper presented at Conference on Confronting the Food Crisis and Climate Change, PAN AP, Penang, Malaysia, 27-29 September 2009

2. Outline 1. Introduction on APC. 2. The Conditions of Peasants and Current Food Crisis. 3. The Movement for Food Sovereignty and Agrarian Reform.

3. What is APC? • The Asian Peasant Coalition (APC) is an Asia-wide coalition of at least 20 million farmers, landless peasants, fisherfolks, agricultural workers, dalit, indigenous peoples, herders, pastoralists, women and youth across these sectors representing 21 organizations coming from 8 countries in Asia (India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Mongolia).  • APC struggles for genuine agrarian reform and resist imperialist globalization. • The APC served as an instrument to unite the farmers in Asia and consistently helped in strengthening its national peasant organization which supports its local struggle especially on land and genuine agrarian reform and issues surrounding food sovereignty.

4. The Conditions of the Peasants and Current Food Crisis • There is a shortage of rice in several countries in Asia– reportedly the worst in the last three decades – is fast becoming the most urgent issue at hand. • The Philippines needs to import further to address tight rice supply, government data shows that more Filipino families went hungry because they were unable to buy enough food • 14.6% of Filipinos were not able to meet their basic subsistence or food needs, from 13.5% in 2003. This means that 12.2 million Filipinos were starving in 2006, up from 10.8 million in 2003. • Cambodia has declared a two-month ban on rice exports • India has banned the export of non-basmati rice and hiked rice prices to $1,000 per ton • In Hong Kong, the price of the popular aromatic rice from Thailand has increased by 30% and people fear the price will continue to rise • In Indonesia, high prices of food increases food insecurity of the people

5. Rice farms in Vietnam have been hit by pest attacks seriously affecting output, which is part of the reason why it cannot meet rice orders from the Philippines. Vietnamese farmers are, however, stockpiling whatever they can in anticipation of rising demands. • While so-called experts have blamed rising fuel and fertilizer prices, climate change, and lack of mechanization or irrigation as the causes of the present crises, an Asian farmers has different views. • this would really happen because of rampant conversion of rice lands to cash crops, “government’s development projects”, and plantations; the promotion of modern varieties and monoculture farming; and the phasing out of small rice farmers

6. Many countries in Asia have lost domestic food self-sufficiency by cutting down on rice farming and relying too much on importation. • The Philippines which used to be a net exporter in the 1980’s has become the highest net importer of rice in the world (since its WTO membership in 1994), a cruelly ironic situation in today’s crises. • Countries like Malaysia and Indonesia have devoted 4 million hectares and 5.3 million hectares respectively to growing oil palm, and this is expected to quadruple in coming years. • The main cause of this crisis is the backward and feudal state of agriculture in the Asian countries and is worsened by neo-liberal policies of the government and trade liberalization that has drastically cut rice lands through land-use conversions and crop conversions. • APC strongly believes that implementation of genuine agrarian reform is the ultimate solution on the food crisis. Government should also control food prices, stop importation, give full support to rice productivity program and withdraw its membership to WTO.

7. In 2008, Indonesia had overtaken Malaysia with 46% production and 47% share in the world market. • Over the next 20 years, Indonesia plans to increase palm oil production 43-fold, with the area under cultivation expanding from 6.4 million hectares in 2006 to 26 million hectares in 2025. • Some 12 million more hectares have already deforested, originally for palm oil plantations, but have not been planted. Experts believed that some of companies are primarily interested not in agrofuels but in quick profit from timber sales. • Rising palm oil prices are accelerating expansion in mainland Malaysia, West Papua and Sulawesi in Indonesia. • Cargill, for example, is increasing it investment in palm oil plantation and mills in Papua New Guinea and the PNG government is drawing up strategy for turning the country into a major agrofuel producer. However, Indonesia’s expansion plans are by far the most ambitious in South-East Asia.

8. For the 32 years of New Order rule (1966-1998), the forestry sector played an important role in the Indonesian economy. • It was developed solely to reap its economic values, particularly through exports and for the repayment of international debts. • The FAO (Food and Agricultural Organization of UN) have stated that the rate of deforestation in Indonesia for the period 2000-2005 is the fastest in the world. Each year, around 1.871 million hectares of forests are lost, or the equivalent of 300 football fields. Earlier data from FAO notes that between 1976 and 1980, at least 550,000 hectares of Indonesian forest vanished annually. • This amount has steadly increased along with the desire for exploiting forest resources by a Forest Consession Rights (HPH or Hak Pengusahaan Hutan), especially in Kalimantan, Sumatra and West Papua.

9. Sumatra and Kalimantan are the regions which have experienced the greatest forest degradation, as being the largest timber producers and fast development of plantation sector over the last 20 years. • There is speculation that HPH holders burnt forests for their own interests in clearing new lands or for their conversion to large-scale plantation use, such as palm oil. • In April 1997, the Indonesian environment suffered a tragedy with forest fires in Kalimantan and Sumatra. An estimated 55 million hectares of forests were lost, at a price of IDR 9 trillion (USD 1 billion). • Other than forest fires which occured in HPH concessions, the growth of palm oil plantations was a new factor in the fires of 1997-1998. • In the 1990s, palm oil overtook other crops as the main plantation products in Indonesia. In January 1995 alone, the East Kalimantan Forestry Department prepared 1.4 million hectares of land for plantation, with 990,000 hectares of this planned for palm oil.

10. Comparison of Deforestation rate in different regions in Indonesia, 1982-1990

11. The Movement for Food Sovereignty and Agrarian Reform • During the New Order regime, imperialism has promoted sectoral land market oriented policies and interrupted the supreme will of Indonesian peasantry, expressed partly in the Basic Agrarian Law 1960. • For almost three decades, the Indonesian peasantry was forced to follow “the green revolution” programmes which were promoted as the antitheses of the land reform programmes. • The programme is claimed to have succeeded in increasing the food productivity in the mid- 1980s. As an acknowledgement of this success, FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) gave Suharto “FAO Award” in 1984.

12. Nevertheless, the “success” of green revolution programmes, did not solve contradictions in the countryside. Poverty among the peasantry and the people in countryside is increasing every year. Having no choice, peasants are forced to sell their agricultural products through the bogus production cooperatives (e.g. KUD=Koperasi Unit Desa) in a market dominated by big business. • The peasants also had to use the chemical fertilisers and other means of production that destroyed the environment and made the land dependent on chemicals. • The overproduction of food (the New Order regime called it “Swasembada Pangan” = Food Self-sufficiency) which was proclaimed as the main purpose of the green revolution caused the price of agricultural commodities to fall. • Liberalization of the domestic market for agricultural commodities brought disaster to the peasants. Use of new technologies in the green revolution did not help to improve the peasants’ life. Instead, the unemployment rate in the countryside is growing high.

13. Other impacts of agrarian crises that already happened in Indonesia are hunger and food shortage in the countryside. Just in the middle of March, 2005, a national paper, Kompas, reported that almost 10 districts in the East Nusa Tenggara Province (NTT) had been hit by food shortage and hunger. The worst sufferers were 32 villages of District Lembata. • The same cases but caused by different factors also happened in Atjeh and Nias eventually just after tsunami attacks. A lot of things happened as the effect of agrarian crises in the Indonesian countryside today.

14. However, it is important to look directly to the causes of the crises. There are at least three causes which led to the agrarian crises in Indonesia today. • First,the domination of big landowners in concentrating ownership on land and other agrarian resources, and the lack of access of the poor peasants to get a piece of land to till for themselves. • The dominant ownership of the land consisted of the feudal-type and the big plantations-type, often land rented out by the government to private plantations, either domestic or foreign. The first type usually came from the noble families of old feudal states who inherit their land from their ancestors. The second is the institutions that applied the semi-feudal relations, especially in relation with land and other agrarian resources. • The big plantations have become the most dangerous and reactionary type of landowners because they are directly connected with imperialism and ever ready to defend its interests. They are willing to do anything to serve and secure the interests of imperialism, including violently repressing the people. Examples of big plantations are Perum Perhutani and Plantation State Corporation (PTPN).

15. Second, the backwardness of productive forces that was caused by the remnants of feudalism and domination of imperialist industries all over Indonesia. Modern technology has been introduced not to benefit the Indonesian peasantry but to benefit the big domestic businessmen, the big landowners, and imperialism. The biggest effect of the forced use of modern technology on the agrarian society in Indonesia is the growth of unemployment in the countryside. Especially women peasants are easily evicted from the land and become a large pool of cheap labor for the big global capitalists. This is the reason for the feminization of Indonesian industry. • Third, state violence and anti-democratic, anti-people, and anti-peasants policies imposed by the puppet regimes of US imperialism. Until today, the regimes always use the security approach to resolve any land dispute and agrarian conflict that happened in Indonesia. • Peasant leaders are arrested or jailed, some even murdered. Those cases happened in Bulukumba (South of Celebes/Sulawesi), Garut, Subang, Pangalengan, Bogor, Sumedang, and Ciamis (West Java), Banyumas and Wonosobo (Central Java), Manggarai (East Nusa Tenggara), Muko-Muko (Bengkulu), Labuhan Batu and Porsea (North of Sumatera), Sesepa-Luwu and Dongi-Dongi (Central of Celebes), Lombok (West Nusa Tenggara), Halmahera (Northern of Mollucas), and Banyuwangi (East Java).

16. The state uses such violence to force the people accept people many state or corporate infrastructure projects funded by multi-finance institutions, such as ADB (Asian Development Bank) or World Bank, the TNCs or MNCs, and serve the imperialist interests in Indonesia. These infrastructure projects always violate the people’s and peasants rights. The people’s rights have been violated by infrastructure projects, such as Kedung Ombo dam’s project, in the Central Java province, the Dam Project of Jatigede in Sumedang, West Java, or Nipah dam’s project, which became the second biggest infrastructure project after the expansion of big-plantation areas. • That is why the cancellation of all infrastructure projects and debt problems also included in the list of demands of the current peasants movement such as AGRA (Alliance of Agrarian Reform Movement) and people democratic movement in Indonesia. However, the main issues of peasant movement are advancing the food sovereignty and agrarian reform.

17. Conclusion • The current Indonesian peasant movement demands an end to the violent approach of the state as well as the release of the arrested peasant leaders jailed on the basis of anti-peasant laws. • While demanding the release of all arrested peasant leaders, the democratic Indonesian peasant movement also rejects the plan of the current government to replace the Basic Agrarian Law 1960 by another law. The previous draft of law revision of BAL 1960 will serve only to advance the interests of imperialism and big landowners. It totally changes the spirit and essence of BAL 1960 which is to carry out the agrarian reform. • Lastly, the agrarian crisis is caused by US imperialism. However, in an agrarian country like Indonesia, the agrarian crisis has the biggest effect among others. It has caused the impoverishment and many other forms of backwardness of the peasants who comprise the majority in Indonesia. This situation has not only supported semi-feudal oppression in the vast countryside but also impeded the democratic movement in Indonesia. • Therefore, the struggles for food sovereignty and agrarian reform in essence is the struggles for economic rights of the people and a step forward in fighting against semi-feudal oppresssion in Indonesia and other semi-feudal and semi-colonial countries in Asia.