Development of Food Security through Integrated Bio-Cycles Farming System in Manokwari, Papua, Indonesia
Abstract
Indonesia’s Law No. 18/2012 defines food security as the condition in which all people, in all households, at all times have sufficient food in both quantity and quality to enable them to live healthy, active, productive and sustainable lives, and that the food is safe, diverse, nutritious, equitably distributed and affordable, and does not conflict with religion, beliefs or culture. According to the Food Security and Vulnerability Atlas, Manokwari District in Province of West Papua was categorized as priority 2, strongly priority for improvement. The aim of this program was developing integrated bio-cycles farming system to improve their level of food security. The program was focused in Mansuburi and Wariori village, Masni Sub-district, Manokwari District, West Papua, Indonesia, from August 2015 for multi-years activities. Program was developed in cooperation between Kemendes PDTT (Ministry of Village, Development of Disadvantaged Areas and Transmigration); UGM Yogyakarta and local goverment of Manokwari District.
The availability of food especially the production of rice, maize, cassava in Manokwari were relatively less developed. Based on the indicators of Normative Consumption per Capita Ratio (NCPR), the ratio of consumption to production in Manokwari was relatively high deficits (> 1.50) due to the limited rice area. Percentage of villages with no access to land and natural freshwater is quite low (<10%)., because of large area and high presipitation in Papua. The poverty was high (25-35%) causes alow access to food. About 30-40% of households have no access to clean water directly. Land conversion from forest area to Sawit estate area around Wariori river caused annual flooding that destroyed 60 ha of agricultural land during rain season since 2014, but the dried effect of El Nino phenomen in 2015 was strongly affecting agricultural production and food security.
Development of master plan for food security 2015-2019 through (i) capacity building of human resources, (ii) natural resource management (iii) business management, would give smart and futuristic perpective program for food security. Facilitating menu 1 (improved seed and fertilizer), menu 2 (infrastructure of check dam, technical irrigation), menu 3 (hand-tractor, handsrayer, cultivator, transplator, composting unit), and menu 4 (rice milling unit, power threser, post-harvest machines) would be very usefull for food security, although delayed in execution. Technical assistance by expert from UGM Yogyakarta improved technical capability in managing natural resource for improvement of food security. The role of 2 assistants that were staying in the village was very important for community empowerment to support food security.
Keywords
Download Options
Introduction
The population of Indonesia is about 240 million. This is a very large number of people and it is the government's responsibility to ensure their quality of life. However, Indonesia is ranked 107 out of 177 countries in terms of Human Development Index. Food insecurity and poverty are still the major problems in Indonesia, and both are closely related. Food security is defined by the WHO as existing “when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life” (UNHCR, 2013). Conversely, groups that experience food insecurity consume insufficient and/or poor quality food, and may engage in socially undesirable activities to obtain food. Food insecurity (FI) is a major cause of poor nutritional status in populations globally Devriese (2006). Serious short-and long-term health implications (Foley et., al, 2010) include poor physical, mental, and social health (Strauss and corbin, 1994). FI can be chronic and persistent, generally caused by extreme poverty, or acute, which is transitory and often triggered by violent conflict or forced migration (Hadley, 2007).
The data of Dewan Ketahanan Pangan (National Food Security Council) in 2006 showed that most people have protein-energy malnutrition because they consume less than the recommended daily intake of calories (2000 kcal per capita) and protein (52 grams per capita). A total of 127.9 million people or 60 percent of the Indonesia‟stotal population consume as much as 1322 to 1998 kcal/day. The impact of food insecurity is the malnutrition that can occur at any age. The BPS data in (2006) showed that more than half of the districts/cities in Indonesia had over 25 percent prevalence of malnutrition among children under five years old. The results of Basic Health Research in 2013 conducted by the Ministry of Health showed that nationally, the prevalence of low weight-less in 2013 was 19.6 percent, composed of 5.7 percent malnutrition and 13.9 percent undernutrition. When compared to the national prevalence rate in 2007 (18.4 percent) and in 2010 (17.9 percent) there had been an increase. The prevalence of malnutrition changed from 5.4 percent in 2007, 4.9 percent in 2010, to 5.7 percent in 2013, while the prevalence of undernutrition rose by 0.9 percent from 2007 to 2013.
For Millennium Development Goals in 2015, the government had set the target of only 15.5 percent nutritional deficiencies. The root of these malnutrition problems is insufficient intake of nutrition among children under 5 years of age. The Indonesian government pays serious attention to the problem of food security and in 2012 had issued a specific regulation regarding food, namely Law No. 18/2012 on food. The law is intended as a legal basis for the implementation of food safety programs which include food planning, food availability, food affordability, food and nutrition consumption, food safety, food labeling and advertising, food supervising, food information systems, food research and development, food institution, community participation, and investigation. Indonesia's food production itself has some issues, namely: (i) the continued conversion of agricultural land to non-agricultural use; (ii) the decrease of the quality and fertility of the land due to environmental degradation; (iii) the more limited and uncertain availability of water for food production due to forest destruction; (iv) the destruction of approximately 30 percent of water infrastructure, where it should be rehabilitated twice in the last 25 years; (v) competition in the utilization of water resources by industrial and residential sectors; (vi) the damage caused by drought and flooding due to the greatly reduced natural protective functions; (vii) the still high proportion of yield loss in the production process, in harvest handling, and in post-harvest processing, which remains an obstacle that decreases the ability to supply the food in high proportion; (viii) climate change; and (ix) the competition between food and biofuel production.
The objectives of the Food Security Master Plan are as follows; (1) Knowing the causes and factors that affect the vulnerability and food insecurity in each predetermined region; (2) Conducting assessment for the region's potentials to develop a resilient food system; (3) Developing a strategy to increase food security in each predetermined region. The completion of the Food Security Master Plan is expected to bring several positive impacts, namely: (1) the existence of a focused policy at regional level on how to handle the vulnerable areas; (2) the management of vulnerable areas in a systematic, sustainable, and measurable way; (3) the changes from vulnerability to food security; (4) the improving conditions of national food security.
Food Security Council and the World Food Programme 2015 has published Food Security and Vulnerability Atlas of Indonesia in 2015. Based on the mapping, 37 percent of children under five years of age were stunted, three quarters of districts had a surplus of cereals, poverty in Indonesia had been reduced but still high, and 34 percent of households do not have access to clean water (WFP1, 2015). In 2015, the government, through the Food Security Council and supported by the World Food Programme (WFP2), published a Food Security and Vulnerability Atlas. The food insecurity in Manokwari District is showed as follows on (table 1). Manokwari District was number 2 on priority list, so it could be concluded that the district was vulnerable to food insecurity. This vulnerability was based on the composite food security index. For the first parameter, which was the prevalence of stunting among children under 5 years of age, the percentage of stunted children under five in Manokwari was considered very high: more than 40 percent. It means that for this parameter, Manokwari district was in emergency situation. For the second parameter, which was the ratio of per capita normative consumption towards net cereal production (rice, maize, sweet potato, and cassava), the ratio of consumption to production in Manokwari was a high deficit: more than 1.5. Still in this parameter, concerning the village with inadequate physical access, the condition in Manokwari was good, only less than 10 percent of the villages there had no access to roads or waterways. The definition and measurement used was the proportion of villages that were not accessible by four-wheeled vehicle or water transport. In the third parameter, which was the population living below the poverty line, the percentage of poor people in Manokwari district was bad: about 25 to 35 percent of the population live below the poverty line. The definition and measurement used was the total expenditure per capita monthly (in Rupiah) to meet the minimum level of consumption (food and non-food) needed by an individual to have a decent life. For the forth parameter, which was the households without access to clean water, Manokwari district was still in good condition: about 30 to 40 percent of the villages do not have access to clean water. Clean water was defined as bottled water, refilled water, plumbing, protected spring, protected well, and pumped well – at least 10 meters from the nearest septic tank. TABLE 1 THE STATUS OF FOOD INSECURITY IN THE STUDIED AREA BASED ON FSVA ATLAS 2015 District Cases Key Issues of Food Insecurity (Kabupaten) P1 P2 P3 P4 P5 in the District Based on FSVA Manokwari > 40 % > 1.5 % < 10 % 30 – 40 % 25-35 % P1, P2, P5
P1: Prevalence of stunting among children under 5 years of age.
P2: Ratio of per capita normative consumption towards net cereal production.
P3: Population living below poverty line.
P4: Households without access to clean water.
P5: Poor families
Conclusion
There are four main issues concerning vulnerability to food insecurity in Papua region, as follows: the prevalence of stunting children under five, the ratio of per capita normative consumption towards net cereal production, households without access to clean water, and poor families. The toddlers stunting is caused by insufficient nutritional intake by the toddlers themselves and by pregnant women. Several factors are associated with the stunting problems, including the lack of energy and protein, chronic disease that often occurs, insufficient feeding practices and poverty. Those problems also need to be responded to enhance the ability of families in consuming nutritious food.
To cope with this aspect of malnutrition, it is recommended to implement the Program of Family's Capacity Improvement in Producing and Processing Nutritious Food Based on Local Food Resource. This program needs to be supported by a wide range of household-scale productive activities such as backyard farming to produce vegetables for the family, and raising free-range chickens on "mini" scale to produce eggs as a source of supplemental protein for the family. The "mini" scale (5-10 chickens) aims to reduce the burden of maintenance costs to zero. The needs for poultry feed in such volume of business can be provided by the household's food waste and other sources.
To overcome the problems concerning the ratio of per capita normative consumption towards net cereal production and the preservation of local food, local crops should be grown, primarily sweet potatoes and cassava. A strict monitoring should also be conducted to control the conversion of agricultural land to grow food into oil palm fields. To deal with the problems concerning poor families, a program should be implemented: The Improvement of Rural Poor Families‟ Welfare through Optimization of Integrated Land Resources Intensively. The program is based on the finding that there are still a lot of land resources in the studied locations that have not been utilized optimally. Regarding clean water issues, the efforts to apply appropriate technology should be encouraged to meet the community's needs for clean water and drinking water.