Indonesia Supports Food and Nutrition Security in Southeast Asia

Jakarta, MINA – Indonesian government supported the creation of food security, nutrition, and farmers welfare in Southeast Asia, which is also an effort of World Food Agency, Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO).

Food security is also main objective of Indonesia Government in every agendas. Therefore, it is important to change the paradigm and time for farmers to become main focus of policies and programs in agricultural sector.

“The future of food security is not in big companies, but in the hands of millions of farm families,” said Indonesian Minister of Agriculture, Andi Amran Sulaiman in his speech at “Regional Conference on Strengthening Southeast Asia’s Food Security, Nutrition and Farmers. Welfare through the UN Decade of Family Farming ” in Jakarta, Thursday.

According to Amran, even though Indonesia is blessed with climate and wealth of natural resources, Indonesian government  face with many challenges in agricultural sector. One of the toughest challenges is an effort to empower farmer families.

With the population of Indonesian farmer families that account for almost half of Indonesia’s population. However, the majority of farming families only have less than one hectare of land.

For this reason, Indonesia has made various breakthroughs, including focusing policies on efforts to empower farmers and budgets. The Minister of Agriculture also hopes that the conference can contribute to improve food and nutrition security, as well as the welfare of farmers.

Meanwhile, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia, A.M Fachir, said that the regional conference was an initiative of Indonesia in implementing UN resolutions, related to decades of farming families that had been ratified since 2017.

According to Fachir, by involving international organizations and Southeast Asian farmer associations, it is hoped that exchange of experiences and practices can occur.

Previously, FAO Assistant Director General Kundhavi Kadiresan appreciated various programs and achievements in Indonesia’s agricultural development in realizing food security and nutritional resilience. This is in line with efforts to overcome food insecurity and malnutrition.

Kundhavi explained that in Southeast Asia, most of the agricultural land is owned by small farmers who have less than five hectares of land. In Indonesia, even smaller, most farmers cultivate less than one hectare of land.

“Let’s be clear, when we talk about farming in Southeast Asia, we talk about family farming. Empowering family farms and farm families will help overcome the root causes of food insecurity and malnutrition, “Kundhavi said. (L/Sj/R04)

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)