Director of Food and Agriculture, National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas), Ir. Wahyuningsih Darajati, M.Sc., asserted that Indonesia should begin to apply the Feed the World paradigm in development planning in the field of food and agriculture. Agricultural sector is expected to be able to contribute to the fulfillment of the global needs.
"The latest development of agriculture sector is not only required to guarantee the domestic provisions, but also to export food and contribute to the fulfillment of the global provisions," Wahyuningsih said on Monday (27/9), conveying a scientific speech entitled Integrated Fisheries Development: the Efforts to Form Sustainability, Food Sovereignty, and the Society Welfare at the Anniversary Week of Faculty of Agriculture UGM.
Furthermore, she said that the public demand food development policy that is free of foreign intervention. Society also hopes to have more freedom in choosing food in accordance with social needs and culture. "The urge against food sovereignty increasingly gets stronger in our development," she explained.
Wahyuningsih said, to make Indonesian agricultural communities prosperous is also a very strong basic demand. Evidence suggests that the majority of poor people is vulnerable to food insecurity. In addition, unemployment is actually experienced by the rural sector that is characterized by agriculture sector. "Even more worrying, the fishermen community is the group of Indonesia's poorest communities," Wahyuningsih explained.
As an illustration, with a simple approach, the comparison between the sectoral GDP and sectoral total employment, employment productivity of the agricultural sector is the lowest compared to other sectors, such as industry. "The excellence level of production and productivity of agricultural commodities, including fisheries, along this time has not been able to provide prosperity for its main actors, namely farmers and fishermen," she concluded.