Food Globalization

Indonesia’s wheat imports in 2017, according to Statistics Indonesia (BPS), reached 10.8 million tons valued at Rp 36.3 trillion.

Surprisingly, there has been no protest from the opposition or NGOs. What has been loudly voiced by the NGOs thus far is their rejection of palm oil. In fact, BPS noted that export of nine types of Indonesia’s palm oil products in 2017 reached 23.7 million tons with a value of Rp 243.9 trillion.

Peanut, soybean and sunflower entrepreneurs in the European Union and the United States who are affected by palm oil, continuously disburse funds through foreign donors, to mobilize Indonesian NGOs to attack palm oil. Its cool slogan is: Palm oil the enemy of the people. Oil palm plantations destroy the environment. Oil palm plantations deplete soil nutrients and other things. How so? Isn\'t the enemy of the people corrupt behavior, injustice and arbitrariness? Do all monoculture plants also destroy the environment?

Wheat and palm oil are examples of food globalization. In the Dutch era, it was unimaginable to have an inlander (indigenous people) eating bread and noodles. Even until the 1960s, bread and noodles were still very elite food products. Now the two products are sold all over the country. Because wheat can only be cultivated in temperate regions, Indonesia’s wheat imports are inevitable and continue to rise. Compared to wheat, palm oil can be more of an example of a globalized food product. This commodity originates from tropical Africa and America, is developed in Asia, and irritates European and American vegetable oil entrepreneurs. In the 1980s, when this commodity was becoming more prevalent, rumors soon emerged from the EU and the US that palm oil causes cancer.

After the cancer issue didn’t work, they switched to the theme of environmental destruction, which is still used today. The Dutch and English crossed the African Dura palm with the Latin American Pisifera palm. The result is Tenera\'s oil palm cultivation with an average vegetable oil production of 5 tons/hectare/year without the need to cultivate the soil and spread seeds. Peanuts, soybeans and sunflowers produce an average of just 1.5 tons of oil/hectare/year with the need to continue to cultivate the soil and spread seeds.

Three periods of globalization

According to the Toba Catastrophe Theory, around 70,000 years ago, there was a volcanic winter and cooling caused by the eruption of the Toba super volcano. For centuries, skies were dark and part of the waters froze. The population of homo sapiens was shrinking. The Genetic Bottleneck Theory mentioned the human population at that time was only 3,000-10,000 pairs. These survivors of homo sapiens migrated from Africa to the east and from India to the northeast and northwest. Along with this migration there was the first globalization of food commodities. Wheat, apples and grapes migrated from Asia to Africa (ancient Egypt) and Europe. Bananas of the Musa genus migrated from Asia to Africa.

Kimpul plecet (colocasia antiquorum), consisting of kimpul salak, kimpul ketan and tales dempel, migrated from Java to Japan and became the famous satoimo tuber there.

If kimpul plecet migrated to Japan, talas bentul (colocasia esculenta) migrated east and stopped in the South Pacific: Samoa, Tuvalu and Vanuatu. Migration of kimpul plecet and talas (taro) occurred between 35,000 BC and 15,000 BC. Only in the 7th century, talas migrated from the South Pacific to Hawaii. In the 3rd and 4th centuries, from the opposite direction sweet potatoes (ipomoea batatas) migrated from tropical America to the Pacific and stopped in Papua, Formosa and Okinawa. If the globalization of the kimpul plecet and talas was carried away by human migration as a result of the Toba disaster, sweet potatoes were brought by the Andean Indians who sailed through the Pacific with a raft of balsa wood.

Bananas also joined the migration in the first period. If in our country it is only known as the banana, after migrating to Africa, Europeans made the distinction between table banana and plantain (processed banana). In Uganda, the world\'s main producer of plantain, the tanduk and kepok types of banana are the local staple food. In Indonesia, the origin of bananas, people eat rice from mainland Asia. This food commodity entered Java through Indian and Chinese traders in 3,000 BC. They came to Java in search of cloves. The Javanese took cloves from five small islands in North Maluku: Bacan, Makian, Moti, Ternate and Tidore. Because of its volcanic soil, Java is very fertile for rice cultivation.

Migration in the second period happened in the 16th and 17th centuries after the European people “discovered” the American Continent. The “new continent” introduced new food commodities to all mankind. Potatoes, corn, cassava, sweet potatoes, talas taro, canna and arrowroot were the sources of carbohydrates on the American continent that were later globalized. Now we consider pineapple, papaya, avocado, soursop and sapodilla as local fruits. In fact, these fruits are also native to tropical America and were only known to the world in the 16th and 17th centuries. The new continent also introduced cocoa, which then became a very elite food ingredient throughout the world.

The third wave of food globalization is happening now with the spread of multinational franchise restaurants in major cities in Indonesia: KFC, McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, Hokben and many others. Most Indonesian households from rural Aceh to remote parts of Papua are now cooking food by adding monosodium glutamate (MSG) flavoring, which is a product of Japanese and Korean companies. Noodles and bread are eaten daily, replacing rice, tubers, breadfruit and sago. Some tubers have almost gone extinct. Tomboreso tuber (Dioscorea pentaphylla), for example, is now difficult to find.

Food as a political commodity

In January 2018, it was revealed that the government was going to import 500,000 tons of rice. Importing food commodities seem to be taboo for the government. Previously, salt imports were also an issue. At the end of 2017, the President planned to replace cabinet ministers and high-level state ministers. Apparently, there were political parties eyeing the Agriculture Minister position. Therefore, the information was spread that the government would import 500,000 tons of rice. It was expected that this information would roll into a snowball until the agriculture minister was replaced. It turned out that in January 2018 the agriculture minister was not replaced. So, the issue of importing 500,000 tons of rice just disappeared.

Exports and imports for modern countries are inevitable. Bilateral and multilateral agreements require each country not only to export, but also to import even though it is the market law that works. It will be

cheaper for the cities of Nunukan and Tarakan in East Kalimantan to bring cabbage, carrots, leaf onions, celery and potatoes from Tawao (Sabah) than from Manado, Makassar and especially Surabaya because of the closer distance. It is cheaper for Batam and Tanjung Pinang in Riau Islands to bring vegetables from Cameron Highlands, Malaysia, than from Berastagi, North Sumatra, also because of the distance.

Even garlic from China with very good quality is cheaper than local garlic. Imported soybeans are also cheaper than local soybeans. The cheapness of these commodities is related to agro-climate and production efficiency. Garlic and soybeans are subtropical plants, which will produce optimally if the day length reaches 17 hours. In tropical regions like Indonesia, the average day length is only 12 hours. In addition to the agro-climate factor, production efficiency also determines commodity prices. Garlic from China, where the country grows the commodity for its 1.4 billion people, is definitely cheaper than Indonesia, which has planted onions for 260 million people. If China adds 10 percent production to exports, the price will definitely be cheaper.

We should not be questioning the imports, but producing commodities that cannot be planted in China and in return flooding the country with those commodities. China, for example, cannot plant bananas and coconuts. Here, bananas and coconuts are everywhere. Chinese people like to eat bananas and drink coconut milk. Coconut milk is very prestigious there. However, it is the Philippines and Vietnam that continuously supply bananas to China in large volumes. We can only supply coconut milk in a limited volume. There are actually many food commodities that we can mass produce to meet the needs of the world\'s most populous country. One of them is cassava flour (tapioca). However, instead of exporting, we even import tapioca from Thailand.

Food can be a powerful political weapon. There is an anecdote that goes like this: "Stop the export of shrimp to Japan, the government there will fall". Understandably, shrimp is a very important food ingredient for Japanese society and most of it must be imported. The French Revolution in the late 18th century, for example, was also triggered by the scarcity of bread. In our country, the change of power in 1965-1967 and 1998, was also accompanied by soaring food prices. For the purposes of the 2019 presidential election, there are likely to be guerrilla efforts to disturb food commodities with the aim of creating scarcity and chaos.

Food security

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Indonesia, with a population of 261 million, rose from the fifth to the fourth most populous country in the world, following China (1.4 billion people), India (1.3 billion people), and the US (325 million people). Of the four most populous countries, we are the most vulnerable to food insecurity because we rely on one commodity: rice. Wheat is the second mainstay, 100 percent must be imported. The US is the safest because of its position as the world\'s fourth wheat producer after China, India and Russia, with 55 million tons. Although only number four, the US has a surplus of wheat to supply the world market. The US is also the largest producer of corn, soybeans and chicken meat.

If only because of its population, China has very much to worry about food security. However, this country is the world\'s largest producer of wheat, rice, potatoes, sweet potatoes, pork and chicken eggs so that its food security is safer than India and Indonesia. India is the second-largest producer of wheat and rice, more vulnerable than China, but safer than Indonesia because it still wants to pay attention to traditional food materials. Suweg tuber or elephant foot yam (Amorphophallus paeoniifolius) is mass

produced. In Indonesia, suweg has been abandoned and forgotten. India is also the second-largest producer of wheat and rice, the fifth in soybean and the sixth in corn.

Indonesia\'s food security is very weak because the country relies nearly 100 percent on rice. We are the world\'s third-largest rice producer, but with mediocre production volume rather than consumption volume. In addition to wheat being used for noodles and bread, which is 100 percent imported, our people also consume meatballs and delicacies such as pempek and siomai, which are made from tapioca. However, we are also in short supply of tapioca so we have to import 250,000 tons, worth more than Rp 7 trillion. Indonesia is the world\'s fourth-largest cassava producer after Nigeria, Thailand and Brazil. With the land area and agro-climate that we have, we should be the biggest producers of cassava.

Now the Agriculture Ministry is focusing on corn self-sufficiency. Our land and agro-climate conditions enable us to be the 8th or 9th largest corn producer in the world. However, now we are still ranked 12th with a production of 11.9 million tons. We should be an exporter. If now we still rely on imports, that is too much. It is no problem with the wheat imports. However, the Agriculture Ministry should also pay attention to sago, breadfruit, tubers of the amorphophallus, dioscorea and xanthosoma types. Or the President should assign state-owned enterprises to produce it en masse.

It actually does not matter with any import because the more important thing is the trade balance and the amount of the foreign exchange reserves we have. Unfortunately, as of July 2018 we still had a deficit of US$2.03 billion (Rp 28.4 trillion). Foreign exchange reserves as of July 2018 amounted to $118.3 billion (Rp 165.6 trillion), down from $119.8 billion (Rp 167.7 trillion) in June 2018. Fortunately, thanks to Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Susi Pujiastuti, our fisheries industry rose sharply. We are recorded as the world\'s number two fishery product producer at 913,000 tons. The future of our animal protein as a food source is not on land, but on the sea. (F. Rahardi, Agriculture Observer)