I.
Reading
Food Security
The Minister of Agriculture of Republic of Indonesia, Muhammad Prakosa at a
press conference on Monday, November 22, after holding a special meeting
with the members of the Commission III of the House or Representat:ives, the
Commission for Agriculture, said that: the government's program for the year
2000 would concentrate or. food security and agribusiness development.
Based on that program the new government will encourage rice
cultivation
toregain food self-sufficiency. It should be noted that since 1980s Indonesia has
always been dependent on imported food, particularly rice from many countries.
According to the National Food Agency, Indonesia imported 5.7 million metric
tons of rice in 1998 an and 1.7 million tons in the first nine months of this year. .
In order to reduce a great dependency on rice the government has already
had a program to diversify the food production such as corns and soybean.
Mr.Prakosa estimated that the rice production in the year of 2000 would reach
51 million tons, a 2.26 percent increase from this year's output. The corn
production was expected to be more than 10.5 million tons and the soybean
would be about 1. 5 million tons. The Indonesia's total population was about
207 million and its per capita rice consumption averaged 135 kilograms.
The minister, therefore, was optimistic that the domestic product:ion combined
with the imported stocks would be sufficient to meet consumption needs until
the end of the first quarter of next year.
The agribusiness program wouls focus on smallholders through an integrated
approach encompassing production and marketing. He said further that his
miinistry would require a development budget of Rp.1.66 trillion in the next fiscal
year to provide subsidies for seeds for rice and secondary food crops, fertilizer
and farm credit. Due to the monetary crisis, about Rp. 967.4 billion of the
development fund was projected to be raised from foreign aid.
(Adapted from "Government aims to focus on food security: Prakosa", Jakarta Post, November 23, 1999).
II. Vocabulary Preview
1. Stocks
2. Soybean
3. Agribusiness
4. Smallholders
5. Diversify
6. Dependency
7. Food self-sufficiency
8. Consumption needs
9. Encompassing
lO.Secondary food crops
11. Output
= Persediaan
= kacang-kacangan
= agrobisnis
= penguasaha kecil
= menganekaragamkan (misalnya pangan)
= ketergantungan
= swa-sembada pangan
= kebutuhan konsumptive
= termasuk, meliputi
= panen sekunder
= hasil produksi