enakajah; I understand what you say but do not fully agree; if subsidies are cut fuel will sell at roughly double the price, so transportation rises but certainly not by 5000 per kg rice, but maybe Rp 200. Please with tight budget will reduce their non-essential travel (driving around for fun) and that amounts, up to where you stay, to up to 70%. And the agriculture produce should be subsidized in way that a) the farmer gets a higher price and b) the consumer gets it i.e. half of now, so then everybody will profit including the poor. Furthermore, if agriculture is subsidized, and therefore worthwhile to work as a farmer, less people will move into the cities and less goods need to be carried to rural areas since they have the produce at place...

EJ/Devine

Both sides of that argument stand scrutiny and both are right in theor own way - re the fuel subsidies possibly a staged cut is required but I think as often is the case enforcement is the key - currently as we know the subsidised fuel is often corrupted anyway - gas is sold to non eligible people and premium (well enough said) I would imagine this accounts for a huge % of the subsidy - hence the subsidy is being gobbled by those who do not need it.

I think the solution is both politically good and certainly economically sound. It relies however on non corrupt enforcement which we are miles away from. Back to stage 1... suck it or cut it...

In terms of rice self sufficiency it is a pipe dream. The uncontrolled population growth plus the diminishing land available will always mean this is the case - improvements have and can be made but again we seem to be obsessed with this jingoistic approach which is very damaging and makes us look very silly as year after year we end up buying huge quantity of rice or beef or fruit etc after announcing 'self sufficiency'

My view is that long term trading agreements serve us much better and accept that trade means just that and that trade is not a failing but a benefit - but as I said jingoism rather like radical religious bile is what the elite think the mass want to hear...I think they are wrong

Devine, you keep repeating the same litany.... no more fuel subsidies. For private cars I agree but for transport all it would do it take more money out of the mouths of the poor as transport costs would skyrocket and the cost of products would rise. Farmers would not be able to have their rice transported because the costs would increase wiping out the Rps 5,000 per kg subsidy you talk about.

Indonesia survives on a road transport distribution system or by sea. Increase the cost of fuel across the board and the poor get hurt yet more as goods would cost more to transport to the rural areas.

Indonesia has as the article says been struggling for Self sufficiency in rice since 1980 a great deal of the problem was corruption in BULOG and lack of cohesion in the growing methods. Both of these factors have been resolved but the ever growing population, the shrinking land available and lack of irrigation means that Indonesian rice production is chasing a goal that is forever just beyond it's grasp. Hundreds of hectares is a very small area on a national level, hundreds of thousands of hectares need to be returned to cultivation to catch up.

SBD; right! But with subsidies people, including young, would be motivated to make the best of it. I know of areas where hundreds of hectares just dry out because "it is not worthwhile" to run the paddies... too much work for to little money... and actually; they are right... so please NO fuel subsides but give each farmer Rp 5000.- for each kg. So he gets Rp 10,000.- and hence it will make sense to work... it will also lift millions of people out of poverty.

These farmers are among the poorest in our country and they are HARD working too...

I would think that it will be quite a challenge for Indonesia to achieve self-sufficiency in rice production, given the rate of population increase, the small size of landholdings involving rice production, the increasing average age of farmers involved in rice production and the economics involved in rice production on small landholdings, amongst other factors. Although Indonesian rice yields are now at an all time high, undoubtedly there is scope to increase such yields with improved seed varieties and improvements in other inputs, as current average yields are below world country best averages by some margin.