Govt bodies agree to speed up food vulnerability

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - A number of government institutions and ministries have agreed to speed up efforts to reduce the country`s food vulnerability and poverty rate over the next two years.

Efforts to lessen food vulnerability would be made through integrated programs to be carried out by government institutions and ministries, Agriculture Minister Anton Apriyantono said here on Wednesday following a meeting of the Food Resilience Council.

The meeting was attended among others by the agriculture minister, the trade minister, the transportation minister, the cooperatives minister, the president director of the National Logistics Board (Bulog), as well as officials from the marine and fisheries ministry and the economic coordinating ministry.

The government had set itself the target of reducing food vulnerability and the poverty rate within five years but the meeting decided to shorten the time, Apriyantono said.

Some 16 ministries and government institutions, including state-owned companies (BUMNs) would support the programs, the minister said.

Apriyantono said food vulnerability was closely related to poverty. The country`s poverty rate in 2005 was recorded at 16.69 percent and it increased to 17.75 percent due to the impact of the fuel price hike in 2006.

However, the poverty rate in 2007 dropped to 16.58 percent as the impact of the fuel price hike had been overcome, he said.

The fuel price hike had affected people facing food shortages whose energy consumption rate was below 70 percent of the energy adequacy rate.

In 2005, a total of 5.11 million people (or 2.32 percent of the country`s population) lived with an energy consumption rate below 70 percent. In 2006 the number rose to 9.95 million or 4.52 percent of the population, but in 2007 it decreased to 5.71 million or 2.55 percent of the population.

"As we are now in the improvement stage, we are moving to the next stage, namely acceleration in order to speed up the reduction of the poverty rate," he said.

The food vulnerability rate had significantly dropped over the past 10 years from 7.9 percent in 1999 to 2.5 percent in 2007, the minister said. Meanwhile, the number of poor people during the 2001-2007 period decreased from 19.1 percent to 16.6 percent.

The head of the agriculture ministry`s Food Resilience Body, Kaman Nainggolan, said one of the efforts to reduce the poverty rate would be the launching of non-formal education programs to fight illiteracy.

"In India, literate mothers have a better understanding and awareness of adequate food intake so there are no more malnourished children there," he said.

In Indonesia, illiteracy-related problems were still to be found in West Java, Banten, East Java and a number of provinces outside Java Island, he said.