No Monopoly On Seeds

“Whoever control the seeds will control the food, whoever control the food will control the people, whoever control the people will control the world”. This repetitious statement contains discrepant interpretations that create a debate in the entire international community. On account of some indications, certain multinational corporations dominate seed industry. It can be categorized as monopoly. Monopoly is an organization or group which has complete control of something, especially in an area of business, so that others have no share (Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, 2003). As a result, farmers suffer a great loss. This problem is critical in that it is related to politics and hegemony. Nonetheless, many arguments toward monopoly come from numerous parties, not to mention the government of Indonesia. Actually, they refuse the term of monopoly. These are some arguments why farmers as main food producers must become the first priority in seed sector instead of big companies.

Some parties argue that seed production procedures which can only be fulfilled by rich companies are justifiable. Using Law No. 12/1992 on Plant Cultivation System and Law No. 29/2000 on Plant Variety Protection, the companies have won most of legal actions against farmers in the court. This is the strongest argument they ever maintain. It is claimed that illegal actions, termed piracy of seeds, have found in particular areas as a company’s staff witnessed in the court. However, it is not fair for farmers. They, as main seed producers, hold the basic rights to produce seeds as their prime livelihoods. According to Universal Declaration of Human Rights, every human being has the right to have an adequate standard of living including food, clothing, and shelter. This right belongs to social rights. In addition, the government of Indonesia has ratified International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights through Law No. 11/2005. It is a strong legal basis for farmers to get their rights to produce seeds besides 1945 Basic Law. In fact, legal flaws have happened. Laws and regulations of seed affair are contradictory in both textual and contextual understanding. Their implementation leads to monopoly in seed business which denies seed farmers’ role. It has been proven from corn seed cases in Kediri and its surrounding. Small-scale farmers have been defeated in court whereas several reputable expertises in law stated that the judges have made improper decisions. One of them is Prof. Dr. Agus Sardjono, an expert in economic law from University of Indonesia. Basically, the moral of those legal products is to assure a long period of prosperity of seed farmers as Indonesian citizens.

Supporters of big companies also claim that the only party who is capable to commit an agreement with the government to run national program of seed subsidy is the big companies. They are appointed  due to their competency in seed business. To a certain extent they are right. However, it is unjustifiable when they can enjoy such privilege from the government. The program has brought many benefits to the companies while small-scale seed farmers have not enjoyed many. The program has altered from its initial objective which is to bring prosperity to farmers. If this policy keeps on being implemented, it will disturb seed farmers’ livelihood. Moreover, the fact shows that some seed farmers in Kediri and its surrounding have left their activity to produce seeds since the seed case happened in 2004. Thus, the situation between the two seed producers can be counted as monopoly, and it breaks Law No. 5/1999 on the Prohibition of Monopoly and Unfair Trade Competition.

It is the contention of multinational coorporations that they can afford high technology to produce large amounts and high quality of seeds. They bound to yield increased profits. They put forward this idea because they has amplitude of capital to make improvements in seed technology. They also claim that they have relations to accomplished professionals from all over the world who can be hired to innovate advanced technology. Contrary to those ideas, seeds produced from high technology result more negative impacts than seeds from natural and conventional processes. Hi-tech seeds, as hybrid and transgenic seeds, are scientifically proven to induce genetic diseases and ecological imbalance. NGO Coalition for Bio and Food Security collected incidents and scientific inventions proving that transgenic food and forage mostly resulted bad implications in the form of organ damage to death. Afterwards, the Coalition demanded some actions of bio and food security to the government. The second impact was shown by a case in Canada that transgenic seeds caused the destruction of plants in the surrounding fields by increasing pests and diseases and polluting the pollination process. Additionally, both hybrid and transgenic seeds highly require a huge amount of chemicals causing infertile soil and environmental degradation.

Opponents of farmers go on to assert that by having plenty of capital and facilities, big companies are capable to fulfill seeds demand in Indonesia, even to export them. They assume farmers are lack of money and skill. In contrast, this position sets the domination of company’s products on the seed market. This is definitely a monopoly act. Indeed, consumers do not have many alternatives to select various types of seeds because there are only a few kinds of seeds provided in the market. This can be a violation dealing with Law No. 8/1999 on Consumer Protection. Furthermore, the law in agricultural aspect obligates the government to facilitate seed farmers with those sorts of assets rather than to rich companies through seed subsidy project. Although there is no support from the government, hundreds of farmers in Kediri and its surrounding mastered seed production independently. They are good at conventional methods of seed production that are plant breeding and propagation. After seeing this reality, there is no way to agree with the arguments from the opponents.

Considering documentary and scientific evidence about the big corporations power on seeds business, they should not be trusted to a thriving agriculture. Farmers, chiefly small-scale ones, have to be the lead actor in seed production. The government must be aware of the practice of monopoly in their cooperation with big corporations. For the sake of farmer wealth, there must be a basic transformation in agricultural policy, especially concerning farmer’s knowledge in seeds. Indonesia’s nature is blessed with the richest biodiversity evolved from various kinds of indigenous germ plasma inside the seeds. It will be meaningless if the government still depend on one or two corporations in developing seed sector.

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DESA?

Apa yang terlintas dalam pikiran dan terbayang dalam angan kita tentang DESA? Orang Jawa yang menjadi penghuni terbesar negeri ini mengasosiasikannya dengan istilah ndeso yang mengarah ke sikap orang yang ketinggalan jaman atau tidak mengikuti modernitas, terutama dalam hal gaya hidup dan pola pikir. Orang yang lahir di daerah pedesaan namun sekarang tinggal dan mencari penghidupan di perkotaan menempatkan desa di ruang memori masa lalunya dan suka bernostalgia tentangnya. Orang asli kota mengingat desa dalam pandangan pegunungan tinggi menjulang, sawah ladang membentang, air sungai mengalir jernih, pepohonan rindang, dan sejenisnya layaknya aksi spontanitas tiap anak bahkan orang dewasa saat diminta menggambar apapun yang saat itu ada dalam pikirannya. Orang kota yang bekerja di desa dalam proyek-proyek pembangunan menyebut desa sebagai wilayah tertinggal yang selalu butuh dibangun baik sumberdaya alam maupun manusianya. Orang desa melihat wajah lingkungannya sendiri sebagai tempat yang kurang maju sehingga butuh bantuan pihak luar untuk lebih memajukannya. Gambaran DESA telah disubordinasi secara awam.

Kemudian, apa yang tidak terpikirkan tentang DESA? Orang desa banyak meninggalkan budaya aslinya, seperti gotong royong dan tepo seliro, lalu beranjak ke budaya modern yang dianggap lebih dihormati dan dihargai. Kalangan muda dan anak-anak sekolah tidak banyak yang berpikir menjadikan desa sebagai ruang kerjanya di masa mendatang meski disitu dan dari situlah mereka dibesarkan. Petani yang mendominasi tenaga kerja di desa tidak terlalu bangga dengan profesinya meski dari tangan dan keringat merekalah bangsa ini dihidupi. Pertanian yang menjadi sandaran hidup utama warga desa tidak lagi menjadi prioritas utama pembangunan pemerintah kita. Dengan ini, DESA telah terlupakan potensinya.

Untungnya, di negara ini masih ada yang tidak sepakat dengan pernyataan tentang DESA seperti yang tertulis diatas. Mereka itu orang-orang yang belajar dan bekerja tidak untuk dirinya atau keluarganya sendiri. Mereka adalah orang-orang yang mengerti makna hakiki kehidupan ini. Mereka tahu bahwa makin banyak mengerti, makin banyak ilmu, makin banyak harta, makin banyak relasi, berarti makin banyak yang harus dilakukan untuk orang lain. Mereka sangat mencintai alam dan seisinya, menghargainya selayak diri mereka sendiri. Mereka lakukan apa yang telah mereka pelajari, pahami, yakini dan ucapkan itu semua dengan sepenuh hati. Demi kehidupan di DESA, demi semuanya.


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From Green to Gene Revolution

The increasing number of world’s population, especially in developing countries, must be followed by the increasing amount of food. Referring to Thomas Robert Malthus, he stated that we should beware of the natural resources’ limited potency to produce food. Thereby, it must be developed to improve food production.

Green Revolution was an action to improve the technology of agriculture. It transformed a traditional farming to an advanced technological one. Ford and Rockefeller Foundation, pioneers in this field, evolved wheat in Mexico in 1950 and rice in the Philippines in 1960. Green Revolution accentuated in cereal crops, such as paddy, corn, wheat, etc. In 1970’s Indonesia’s government implemented Green Revolution by undertaking Farming Extensification and Intensification. Widening farm-land was the first farming about. The restriction of land induced the government to appoint mostly the second one.

A Farming Intensification was conducted through The Five Farm Enterprises which consisted of the use of superior seeds, land cultivation techniques, irrigation system or water management, fertilization, and pests and diseases control. Their main objective focused primarily on high external inputs of agriculture. The program was dominated by the consumption of chemicals, and the use of superior hybrid seeds and high-technological tools as the inputs.

Not only The Five Farm Enterprises have delivered positive impacts, but it also has bore negative collisions. As the preceding ones were the rise of rice and wheat production, the food fulfillment increased significantly as well. For example, Indonesia could alter its position from rice importer to a rice self-sufficiency country. The following ones were the decrease of protein production, the reduction of biodiversity, the dependence of chemicals, the emergence of new strains of resistant pests, the decline of land fertility, and eventually the imbalance of ecology.

The developing of The Five Farm Enterprises stimulated the excitements to engineer superior varieties, establish fertilizer factories, bear soil cultivation tools, create harvest processing tools, and formulate various formulas of pesticides. The role of Research Centers and Universities became predominant to reserve new technological inventions and improved old cultivation techniques. The purposes of those developments in technology were to generate and save not only food production but also the human’s life sustainability, and open a life opportunity for the next generation to free from fear of cannot-eat. The Five Farm Enterprises continued to be evolved. Direct or indirect institutions related to agriculture were involved to The Mass Guidance.

Later on, a social engineering called The Seven Farm Enterprises was arisen. It consisted of several tips used by farmers for planting paddy to produce qualified yield. At the time, the government frequently decided to import rice because of less qualified production by local farmers. The policy made the local farmers’ rice lose in competition with imported rice. Consequently, to gain a high quality product farmers conducted The Seven Farm Enterprises which consisted of The Five of Farm Enterprises that was added with post-harvest processing and marketing.

In Indonesia was Gene Revolution, better known as genetic engineering, scattered in the 1990s. It continued the implementation of The Five Farm Enterprises that more focused on engineered seeds development. Superior seeds as one element of Farm Enterprises have to be made by cross breeding two or more varieties. The plant breeding knowledge was dedicated to impose high yield of cereal crops as staple food. The way to get that was using genetically modified seeds created by moving genes from one organism to another. Sophisticated technology made it possible to happen in almost all living organisms. Thus, biotechnology is the most important tools of gene revolution.

The development of new seed varieties by genetic engineering was designed to facilitate the use of new technologies like synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and mechanized machinery manufactured by transnational companies. Here comes the problem! There was an alternation in the gene revolution’s previous objective which should bring wealthy to farmers as food producers. In fact, what have been done by farmers for years then was replaced by scientists and researchers. That’s still in the use of technology aspect. From the production facet, farmers’ role was substituted by big international manufactures. The seeds that use to be crossed pollinating usually was hybrid seeds while farmers get used with local seeds. Eventually, farmers got nothing from this model of development.

In the progress, it can be defined that gene revolution differs significantly from the older one which is the green revolution. It is owned by the public under government’s control, while the other one was a private business. There are intellectual property rights that can make a possibility for private companies to control and get profits. The profits that should be felt by all people go fairly to agrochemical companies. They have a great technology to get as high as possible profits not only from engineered seeds but also the package of them such as fertilizers and pesticides. Both the seeds and their package are all patented by some particular companies that make them more expensive. The companies claim farmers’ seeds and the varieties that have been spread out in rural communities. This action can cause all farmers profits taken away and captured by companies.

Finally, playing gene has no difference with playing game. It will keep on developing since it is alive. A gene will grow in several crops continuously in the environment. It is really difficult to control the contamination of genetic engineering (GE) crops because it happens naturally by wind, water or flying animals. In the field, it can result local varieties to disappear and the environment to be destroyed. In a legal field, farmers can be brought to court because of illegally using patented gene in crops although they did not intend to do that.

Despite the propaganda of genetic engineering being the solution to feed the world, many GE crops are truly grown for industrial than food use. As a conclusion, the development from green to gene revolution does not help agriculture in most aspects. Going to agricultural modernization has not solely been identically about genetic engineering and high technology. It can be worked by developing the potency of local knowledge, biodiversity, farming cultures, traditionally on-farm breeding, etc. in the rural community. Indonesia is the richest country with all of its potency in the world.

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Right to Food is The Human’s Basic Right

The number of the poor suffering from famine could never be decreased in the future. The one who has responsibility to this condition is the government. It also cannot be dispersed from the people’s culture accessing their food. People’s manner nowadays does not place food as important as before. Thus, both of them have their own parts which are the government violates or abandons people’s right to food and the people neglect the importance of qualified food.

Right to food is the right of every human being, including women and children, whose physical and economic access any time to obtain sufficient food as a requirement of human’s dignity. Right to food will be fulfilled if every man, woman, and child hold an overtime-access to sufficient food or its procurement methods physically and economically. Right to food is one element of human rights that consist of civic, political, economic, social, and cultural rights. It belongs to cultural rights.

According to The United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, there are three government’s obligations related to the right to food of its people: obligations to fulfill, to protect, and to respect. As a formal institution, government and all of its agencies have a big duty to make sure their people get their rights to food. When there are people suffering in hunger, government’s agencies must fulfill their needs on food, protect their accesses to food from disorders of the other parties, and respect their livelihoods to get proper food. It can use its tools of power to do those actions, such as regulations, policies, and programs.

The problem of famine can also be caused by inappropriate people’s manner on food. People are starting to be unaware on healthy and sufficient food. They begin to neglect food as primary needs recently. In this modern era, people give more concern to secondary goods, just like television, computer, or hand phone, than essential needs. Even the poor do this action for their prestige. Specifically for children, they are served by instant food because their parents are not willing to prepare enough time to healthier one. That is why there are many strange diseases massively spread out. The reason is that people do not pay attention to eating healthy food and living in a healthy life anymore. Then they will be tied up with poverty by keeping this way of life.

Right to food must be considered as the human’s basic right. In the name of human rights, people can advocate their right to food to government as a prime stakeholder when theirs are violated. To solve the cultural problem, building the people’s consciousness of the importance of food is the best solution. It needs cooperation between government and the people to conduct some related programs. Supporting this idea, right to food should be implemented comprehensively and integrated along with other human rights.

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Women Discrimination in Agricultural Resources Management

In this country, farmers are marginalized in almost all aspects of life. Socially, being farmers is one of livelihoods which are underestimating because of their low income and simple life. Economically, job opportunity in agriculture is getting fewer along the narrowness of productive land and less government’s program and budget in this field. Politically, the priority alternation from agricultural to industrial development has resulted some contrary policies that don’t take side to small farmers and support a sustainable agriculture. Culturally, agrarian culture with the local wisdom of rural community is assumed gradually to be old-fashioned compared with modern culture that is full of advanced technology of urban community. As a conclusion, farmers encounter discrimination to live their life properly.

The reasonable analysis where the women take place in agriculture field establishes obviously a double discrimination on them. The cause is that the Indonesians are still fully living with patriarchal culture placing women’s position below men. Women farmers are much uncountable in the planning and implementation of development programs in relating field because they are assumed to be represented by men as head of a family. Several laws and regulations affect women farmers losing their access to agricultural and natural resources management. These policies cause a not well-targeted and unsustainable development. There will be no significant impact to poverty number decreasing comprehensively in all over this country as long as farmers are still being a foundation of life of the Indonesians.

Women farmers experienced some facets of discrimination in agricultural and natural resources management from the implementation of Green Revolution of Indonesia in 1980s until recent years. In a rural farming culture, women take hold of particular roles in some aspects of life dispensed equally and fairly with men and other family members in domestic scope, and with other social groups in public scope or in a community. Those roles include some aspects of agricultural and natural resources management, such as land control, seedlings, plant cultivation works, rural farmer’s organization, and public decision making. Unfortunately, those roles is getting disappeared in the last decades replaced by high-technology and individually instant culture.

·      Right to Land

Political culture and cultural politics spread out in Indonesian people, because of patriarchal culture, cause women losing their rights to own a land properly, even though they got the land by their own efforts or inheritance. Land administration is in the name of their husbands after getting married or it is represented by their brothers if they are single or divorced. Women are considered only as supporting roles in the land right advocacy, so they are very often overlooked when the right has been captured and distributed. It belongs to the violation of women’s economic rights causing them not get benefit from the usage of land. For example, women can use land certificates as a guarantee to get a venture capital, or they can determine the management technique of the farm land by themselves. Women are dissociated from economic access to the land resources that put them into difficulties to be independent and susceptible to falling on poverty.

·      Right to Food

The production and storage of seeds have been women’s essential roles in farm for long time ago. They have developed local seeds from the forest and surroundings from generation to generation for centuries. Local seeds are naturally bred and selected so they can be kept productive, qualified, and relatively resistant to pests and diseases. These roles have started to disappear since government has introduced hybrid seeds whose natures are terminator and perishable. As a result, the seeds supply that previously became women’s responsibility was altered to seed companies and market’s role. Moreover, the seed subsidy established by government gives more financial beneficiary to seed companies than to farmers. In this condition, government violates women’s rights for not respecting their efforts to conserve seeds and defend their source of economy. It means that women lose their rights to food, the right to get adequate food to eat daily.

·      Plant Cultivation

Women place many roles in plant cultivation, such as seedling, transplanting, weeding, and harvesting. Doing those roles, women discrimination happens when their wages are lower than men in the same quantity of work hours. The consideration is that women’s works are lighter than men or they spend less energy. In fact, the amount of physical energy used at work is relatively the same between both of them. Even other jobs decide their wages on the capacity and professionalism of workers. This differentiation creates double burden on women who still have to be responsible on domestication and have to work twice harder to get equal wages upon men. It will be a distinctive burden, especially for the widowers. This problem is greatly caused by culture respecting men higher than women, called is patriarchal culture. In this case, government has not made any intervention on its policy to eliminate discrimination on women.

·      Rural Farmers Organization

Since The New Order Government was running, women’s roles were getting domesticated, including in an organization. Barely are women as members in farmers groups, particularly in water users’ farmers groups. However, women are the biggest water users. If they participate in farmers groups, they take part only in food division or joining a cooking training. The minimum access and opportunities for women in an organization cause their low capacity and skills to work on farm.

·      Public Decision Making

The difference between the opportunity given in farmers groups and the real women’s works in farm makes women have no bargaining position on decision making from the lowest level in family, community, until national level. In Development Planning Discussion, the number of women participation is still under 30% with inactive level of participation. It causes a not well-targeted development program and a stagnant poverty reduction eventually. This discrimination of rural women on decision making is a government’s violation to its people because of not fulfilling their political rights.

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Farmers and Peasants in Difference

Even though farmers and peasants work in the same field, in reality they have three main differences. The first difference between both of them is about the size of their farmland. Farmers control more than 1/6 Ha farmland. In contrast, peasants just restrain less of it. They also differ in work management. In the planting season, farmers start to till their land by hiring farm workers until all the work is finished. Because of their large land, they need more power to cover all work. Though farmers have some planting skills, they rather take part as managers on their farming. On the other hand, peasants are used to working on their land by themselves. Due to their lack of land and assets, they cannot afford the payment of farm workers. Then the final difference is that farmers have more freedom to choose various kinds of plants for food to plant. They could be from main crops until horticultural ones. In contrast, peasants have no other option to plant beside paddy, corn and cassava. The same reason behind this is just the same with the previous two differences. They are about the lack of land and assets of peasants. Planting various kinds of crops need a big cost of production and a larger land either. If peasants insist to plant them, their farming will not be efficient or even they will get broke. Therefore, peasants are used to be called as small-scale farmers, and they are poorer than farmers.

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Unsurprising Main Cause of Poverty

What do you think about poverty? Do you think of torn clothed beggars, cartoon or bamboo house with sandy floor? Or tiny children with malnutrition? Is that related to a family that can’t afford daily food? Or children who play around the street in big cities at school time? Unsurprisingly, many people assume in that way. If that’s the way it is, then what do you think of its cause? Is it about lack of skill? Uneducated person? Unwilling to work? Or poor assets?

Common people determine economics poverty at the first time. It’s about physical conditions of a person we can easily recognize at our first sight. We can understand this assumption from looking at our daily surroundings. In addition, it is strengthened by the implementation of government’s programs. They have established several programs to reduce poverty in Indonesia, such as direct cash money, rice for the poor, also seeds and fertilizers subsidies for farmers. People are used to thinking of an idea that the poor can be looked by their physicals.

Actually, talking about poverty could not be limited on the physical condition which is called economics poverty. There are two other kinds of poverty in these forms of political and social poverty. Political poverty means a person who does not have consciousness about the government and its governance, and/or he/she does not have access to know about it or to participate in a decision making. Then social poverty means a person who does not have a good relationship with his/her neighbors and surroundings and/or he/she cannot get involved with them.

Before we think of some actions to reduce poverty, we would better figure out its causes. In the first paragraph, it is mentioned that personal conditions become the causes. They are called as cultural poverty that someone suffers economics poverty because of him/herself. He/she has some attitudes, such as laziness and desperation, which block him/her to earn money to live. Also he/she has no skill or ability to work in a proper job. The second cause of poverty is called a structural one. It is caused by the government’s policies that do not take side with marginalized people. Particularly in Indonesia whose corruption, collusion and nepotism extremely influence all of its aspects of life, many people suffer in structural poverty. In this condition, a person makes an effort in whatever ways to improve their livelihood; he/she still cannot live properly.

The structural poverty should be the main cause of poverty. It requires a big effort to find out the solution since we face the government who’s a big power of its people. As common people, we need to conduct some advocacy actions with specific strategies to the government in order to make suitable policies specifically for marginalized people. Therefore, besides developing our skill to work productively, we have to care with government’s policies with the purpose to reduce poverty in Indonesia.

The structural poverty is primarily causing the main problem faced by Indonesian people. It is suffered by the poor because of the unjust government’s policy. Their problem was known as limited access in economy, politics and social-culture, including health and education, which is called as basic needs of mankind. They were firmly accepted by the poor when the government concentrates on industrial development from agricultural one.

The fact really takes effect on an increasing number of the poor from agricultural livelihood such as farmers, farm workers and fishers. It is strengthen by another one that most of Indonesian people live in the same livelihood. Anyone should be worried about this reality while they produce food for human being essentially. Whenever happens, this world will be occupied by poorness and hunger.

Generally people do not realize the reality concerning politics. Since the government’s policy becomes the culprit of this poverty, it can be assumed to violate people’s right. Politics is a system dealing with all things engaged with power relations and public interests. In a national scope is the government that has the strongest power ever. Farmers are one of the communities who barely have a bargaining position with government because of their lack of access in politics. Whenever they experience the violation of their rights, they cannot advocate theirs without some supports from other parties. Eventually, they become the primary marginalized group in this country.

Never can the implementation of poverty reduction program by the government be successful without people’s participation and consciousness. At this time people still think unsurprisingly about the main cause of poverty, that is the personal cause or cultural one, barely ever can the government solve its problem of poverty and improve its development. Therefore, people have to understand exactly the main cause of poverty so that they could support the formation of the just government’s policy.

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How to Produce Rice is Ignored

I am extremely sure that not everyone who eats rice understands entirely how to bear it. In fact, rice is the staple food for most Indonesians. This is badly ironic. This reality brings to some consequences. Some ones always have a large or a small amount of rice left after eating. The waste rice is thrown away without latter management to be a more useful matter. Even before consumption, they don’t know how to boil rice precisely in order to keep its nutrition. What bad manners are!

If only most people knew how hard it is to produce rice, they would appreciate it more. Farmers shed their sweat and tear to show their hard works. They have to get dirty by soil and manure and get wet by river water. They must speculate their money and assets to be planted in rice business. Even they often broke on their farm because of some unpredictable conditions such as pests and diseases occurrence, natural disasters, or the fallen-price. Thereby, theirs must be respected properly by a better people’s manner over rice.

The preceding statement is simply an introduction to the next further explanation about how to produce rice. It has several objectives for the sake of a better future for every society’s group. Despite giving more reverence to farmers, I strongly recommend that the appreciation to rice have to be emerged by building a rice respectful culture. It also has economical value to guarantee societal life prosperity whereas rice is as a property of life.

Let’s start to find out how to produce rice comprehensively! We will learn it in a safely and sustainably environmental way. First, farmers work on land preparation. It will use manual techniques by animal power or hoe. The second step is pulling of seedlings. The seed previously has been planted in seedbed for at least a week. It would have been transplanted if it was strong and old enough. Thirdly, the transplanting is executed. A month later, they carry out weeding as the fourth step. The fifth one is application of farm yard manure. If it is found some pests or diseases attacks above a permitted threshold, the natural pesticides will be splashed to the plant. The manure and the pesticides are made by natural matters taken from the environment. This is the step number six. Approximately three months, it depends on the variety of rice, the seventh step is harvesting. They use a sickle or a hook to cut the paddy at its bottom. Those are seven steps of rice production in farm.

The next five steps, named off farm, which we will be discussed, are the processes on how the rice can come up to our dining table. As step eight, the harvested paddy is threshing. This process is about beating the unshelled-rice out of the paddy-plant by a specific manual device from wood or bamboo. The ninth step, the paddy is selected and classified into several grades for seed, food, and animal feed. Then the tenth step is manual dehulling of paddy for food using a pestle and a mortar. It produces rice. Parboiling is the eleventh step. After that, we come to final step that is food preparation. So, enjoy your dish!

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Free Trade’s Bad Effects on Agriculture

Where can you find the reverse of Robin Hood effect: robbing the world’s poor to enrich corporate agribusiness? That is the way free trade works in agriculture. Agriculture is the source of livelihood for over 40% of people on earth. Most of these producers are small-scale and subsistence farmers who constitute 75% of the world’s poor. Subsistence farmers are farmers who prioritize to produce food for their families and communities utilizing natural resources from their surrounding environment. This fact shows that subsidies and other international agreements support capital-intensive agriculture dominated by transnational corporations. Moreover, agricultural subsidies run by free trade system has contributed to the decline of rural area on both human and natural resources. Free trade in agriculture delivers to farmers’ impoverishment, destruction of farm environment, and violation of people’s right to food.

Agricultural trade liberalization impoverishes farmers. According to the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA), it interprets agricultural subsidies and deregulation. Both of them result in the impoverishment of farmers. Firstly, agricultural subsidies given away as a protection to domestic products reverse from its preceding purposes which are to save small farmers and preserve a way of life. In contrast, they mostly go toward rich farmers and corporate agribusiness. Farmers do not accept anything from this policy except a loss of their cultural habituation in the form of the independence to produce their own production tools. The subsidies are used by agrochemical corporations to provide chemical inputs of production. Secondly, a policy called deregulation is implemented to support free trade. The government commits on international obligations to reduce domestic and export subsidies, increase market access, and regulate agriculture trade with more disciplines on domestic farm policies. All those regulations do not protect small farmers in all aspects of their farms, from cultivation to marketing. Eventually, they bring to farmers’ bankruptcies. The capital used for buying agricultural inputs that farmers cannot pay back in cash from corporate agribusiness must be paid by their land and assets of farm as the warranty, so they are homeless and being loss of their community.

Another bad effect is the increasing yield for export oriented crops destroys farm environment. To drive crop yield vastly and continuously, chemicals input such as fertilizers and pesticides are needed in a big amount and this makes farmers dependent extremely on them for a long time ahead. This practice can decrease land fertility and disturb farm ecosystem. In addition, there will be a destruction on biodiversity by monoculture. The concentration on only one or some commodity crops in one farmland area makes farmers stop rotating their crops with the result that create an imbalanced ecology. There will be no more various kinds of plants and animals correlating in a circle of eating in a particular farm environment.

One more bad effect of free trade in agriculture is people’s right to food has been weakened by the dependence of free market. International financial institutions which promote free market have created a system that focuses on export-oriented production and alienates people from productive resources such as land, water, and seeds. Farmers could fulfill their daily food from subsistence farming for years before, but now they can merely rely on food from the market whose quality and safety cannot be guaranteed. It can be found in many places that farmers starve because their low incomes cannot afford adequate food. For the interest of producing exported commodities, both government and big companies take control on all natural resources to be exploited. They can be considered to violate people’s right to food, especially farmers’. Right to food is the right of every human being who has physical and economic access any time to obtain sufficient food as a requirement of human’s dignity. There are two aspects that can be categorized in the violation of the right to food: obstructing access to natural resources and making to consume unqualified food. It is ironic that farmers as food producers have to suffer from hunger.

Agricultural trade liberalization has increased global poverty and hunger and disrupted environmental conservation. Therefore, farmers organizations and social movements all over the world recommend strongly that free trade in agriculture should be halted. These movements prioritize health, qualified, and culturally appropriate subsistence production for farmers’ households and the domestic market. Furthermore, they conduct intensive communications with governments and participate in the World Trade Organization’s agenda to conduce juster policies and regulations for marginalized people. Anyone, who are keen on supporting these movements, should better analyze precisely the free trade’s problems in agriculture that affect basic human needs as our joint problems.

Dian Pratiwi Pribadi

No Monopoly On Seeds

“Whoever control the seeds will control the food, whoever control the food will control the people, whoever control the people will control the world”. This repetitious statement contains discrepant interpretations that create a debate in the entire international community. On account of some indications, certain multinational corporations dominate seed industry. It can be categorized as monopoly. Monopoly is an organization or group which has complete control of something, especially in an area of business, so that others have no share (Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, 2003). As a result, farmers suffer from a great loss. This problem is critical in that it is related to politics and hegemony. Nonetheless, many arguments toward monopoly come from numerous parties, not to mention the government of Indonesia. Actually, they refuse the term of monopoly. These are some arguments why farmers as main food producers must become the first priority in seed sector instead of big companies.

Some parties argue that seed production procedures which can only be fulfilled by rich companies are justifiable. Using the Act No. 12/1992 on Crop Cultivation System and the Act No. 22/2000 on Crop Variety Protection, the companies have won most legal actions against farmers in the court. This is the strongest argument they ever maintain. It is claimed that an illegal action, termed a piracy of seed, have found in particular areas as a company’s staff witnessed in the court. However, it is not fair for farmers. They, as main seed producers, hold the basic rights to produce seeds as their prime livelihoods. According to Universal Declaration of Human Rights, every human being has the right to have an adequate standard of living including food, clothing, and shelter. This right belongs to social right. In addition, the government of Indonesia has ratified International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights through Law No. 11/2005. It is a strong legal basis for farmers to get their rights to produce seeds besides 1945 Basic Law. In fact, legal flaws have happened. Laws and regulations of seed affair are contradictory in both textual and contextual understanding. Their implementation leads to monopoly in seed business which denies seed farmers’ role. It has been proven from corn seed cases in Kediri, a small town in East Java, and its surrounding. Small-scale farmers have been defeated in the court whereas several reputable experts in law stated that the judges have made improper decisions. One of them is Prof. Dr. Agus Sardjono, a specialist in economic law from University of Indonesia. Basically, the moral of those legal products is to assure a long period of prosperity of seed farmers as Indonesian citizens.

Supporters of big companies also claim that the only party who is capable to commit an agreement with the government to run national program of seed subsidy is the big companies. They are appointed due to their competency in seed business. To a certain extent they are right. However, it is unjustifiable when they can enjoy such privilege from the government. The program has brought many benefits to the companies while small-scale seed farmers have not enjoyed many. The program has altered from its initial objective which is to bring prosperity to farmers. If this policy keeps on being implemented, it will disturb seed farmers’ livelihood. Moreover, the fact shows that some seed farmers in Kediri and its surrounding have left their activity to produce seeds since the case happened in 2004. Thus, the situation between the two seed producers can be counted as monopoly, and it breaks the Act No. 5/1999 on the Prohibition of Monopoly and Unfair Trade Competition.

It is the contention of multinational corporations that they can afford high technology to produce large amounts and high quality of seeds. They bound to yield increased profits. They put forward this idea because they have amplitude of capital to make improvements in seed technology. They also claim that they have relations to accomplished professionals from all over the world who can be hired to innovate advanced technology. Contrary to those ideas, seeds produced from high technology result more negative impacts than seeds from natural and conventional processes. Hi-tech seeds, as hybrid and transgenic seeds, are scientifically proven to induce genetic diseases and ecological imbalance. NGO Coalition for Bio and Food Security collected incidents and scientific inventions proving that transgenic food and forage mostly resulted bad implications in the form of organ damage to death. Afterwards, the Coalition demanded some actions of bio and food security to the government. The second impact was shown by a case in Canada that transgenic seeds caused the destruction of plants in the surrounding fields by increasing pests and diseases and polluting the pollination process. Additionally, both hybrid and transgenic seeds highly require a huge amount of chemicals causing infertile soil and environmental degradation.

Opponents of farmers go on to assert that by having plenty of capital and facilities, big companies are capable to fulfill seed's demand in Indonesia, even to export them. They assume farmers are lack of money and skill. In contrast, this position sets the domination of company’s products on the seed market. This is definitely a monopoly act. Indeed, consumers do not have many alternatives to select various types of seeds because there are only a few kinds of seeds provided in the market. This can be a violation dealing with the Act No. 8/1999 on Consumer Protection. Furthermore, the law in agricultural aspect obligates the government to facilitate seed farmers with those sorts of assets rather than to rich companies through seed subsidy project. Although there is no support from the government, hundreds of farmers in Kediri and its surrounding mastered seed production independently. They are good at conventional methods of seed production that are plant breeding and propagation. After seeing this reality, there is no way to agree with the arguments from the opponents.

Considering documentary and scientific evidence about the big corporations power on seeds business, they should not be trusted to a thriving agriculture. Farmers, chiefly small-scale ones, have to be the lead actor in seed production. The government must be aware of the practice of monopoly in their cooperation with big corporations. For the sake of farmer wealth, there must be a basic transformation in agricultural policy, especially concerning farmer’s knowledge in seeds. Indonesia’s nature is blessed with the richest biodiversity evolved from various kinds of indigenous germplasm inside the seeds. It will be meaningless if the government still depend on one or two corporations in developing seed sector.

Dian Pratiwi Pribadi