The targets of agricultural development

After the 1998-1999 economic crises, the agriculture sector is now in a phase of accelerated growth. The agriculture sector has proven to be more resistance to external shock than other sectors. The agriculture sector has been playing a role as a buffer of the national economy, particularly in supplying food; export earning, job opportunity and poverty alleviation. To maintain program sustainability and to keep growth momentum as well as utilize development result, agricultural development program and activities plan is formulated by Ministry of Agriculture.

There are three main targets of agricultural development which must be reached in the next five years namely:
1. The improvement of national food security covering improvement of production capacity of agricultural commodities and decreasing the dependency to food import around 5-10 percent of domestic demand.
2. The improvement of value added and competitiveness advantage of agricultural commodities covering the improvement of the qualities of agricultural products, the improvement agricultural product processing diversification and the increase export and export surplus of agricultural product
3. The improvement of farmer welfares covering the increased on labor productivity in agricultural sector and lower poverty incidences.

In the period of 2005-2009, agricultural sector needs investment of RP 77.07 trillion or RP 14.40 trillion per year. Job opportunities created by agricultural sector in 2009 will be 97.47 percent of job opportunities in agricultural sector. In value added and competitiveness, it will increase the production efficiency reflected by decreasing the growth of production cost per unit by 5 percent per year.

The growth of food crops production is projected to increase around 0.35 - 6.50 percent per year. Production of paddy will increase from 55.03 million tons in 2005 to 57.71 million tons in 2009. Corn production will increase from 11.82 million tons in 2005 to 13.97 million tons in 2009. The percentage of poor people in rural areas will decrease from 18.90 percent in 2005 to 15.02 percent in 2009.

Under the Japan Indonesia Economic Partnership Agreement, Indonesia will be able to export its farm products to Japan as the latter will cut import tariffs on the products or scrap them within 15 years. In exchange, Indonesia will also cut or scrap import tariffs on Japanese products in stages within the next 15 years. Indonesia and Japan as the two countries sign an economic partnership agreement (EPA) which went into effect on July 1, 2008.

In cooperation of agriculture and fisheries will be stressed in 4 projects: Improvement of post-harvest handling and marketing facilities; Standardization and quality control for horticulture products of Indonesia; Project for sustainable Indonesian fisheries product competitiveness; Technical assistance to small and medium enterprises in Indonesian fish and shrimp industry.