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.

Dian Pratiwi Pribadi

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!

Dian Pratiwi Pribadi

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