Food Crisis In Indonesia : How Could It Be?

We usually heard many people talk about issues related to the food crisis in Indonesia. World top five agricultural country title seems cannot avoid Indonesia from this issue. Furthermore, there are many Meme pictures state "Only in Indonesia..." which aggravate the country image. Because many Indonesians think that it's impossible for Indonesia to get involved in the food crisis. When it really happens, some Indonesians start to blame the government without learning more about it. Without understand why the crisis could be happened, even in the agricultural country.

Maybe some of us are thinking that it's only happened in Indonesia. In fact, many other agricultural countries ever face the same issue. Such as Russia, China, Poland, Germany, or even the United States. Russia experienced it in 2016 because of the lack dairy and meat supplies. China involved on this crisis in last 3 years because of the lax food safety. Poland has to face the crisis in the middle of 1981 because of economic crisis and food shortages. Germany closed more than 4700 farms in 2011 because of contaminated animal feed, worth million tons of meat supplies. The United States still stand with their rising food price this month, put them into massive food crisis in American history.

There is the misconception about the factor that may cause the crisis. The main reason for food crisis is not only because the foods are unavailable but also because people cannot afford the available food which caused by many factors. Such as natural disasters, conflicts, and global food prices. 

Natural Disaster

Natural disaster has the great impact on the food crisis. Whether it's happened in the food source area (production), in the area of distribution (customer), or in shipment area between the two parties (shipment process and warehouse storage). East Java is the largest producer of rice in Indonesia with global distribution area. Once it attacked by natural disaster, rice supply in the central market suddenly down, result in the lack of rice stock in the central market and the local price will be rise shortly. The same thing can happen in the different situation. Sumatera island market price depends on Java island. South Sumatera is a province that mainly conducts Java with Sumatera island. When the natural disaster occurs and the deliveries stopped in South Sumatera. It can affect the stock price in the island. Now, we can understand why people cannot afford the food because of the natural disaster. The over price food means disaster for the poor.

Conflicts

Conflicts are the other reason why food crisis could happen in Indonesia. It may cause people losing the job. Losing the source of money. When the money runs out, they cannot afford the food. Territorial conflicts also cause people unable to get the food from the other territory which has the better food supply. In some cases, the parties within conflicts are blocking the food supply for the rebels. Sometimes, it does not only affect the rebels but also the other civilians. The delivery of the food is harder in this state. Particularly if the aid workers are attacked or the supplies are looted.

Global Market Price

Global Market Price is not affected too much in Indonesia during its high export capability. But in some commodities like cereals, it can be very serious problem. Cereals listed as the top Indonesia import in 2015. Worth of USD 3.2 billion per years or equal to IDR 41.5 trillion. It's almost 2.3% of total import cost of the country. Small different change of the global market price would be the great impact for the local market price. When it happens, the crisis becomes a reality.