Jakarta, The Indonesia Post – The chairman of the Indonesian House of Representatives (DPR RI), Puan Maharani, asked the government to anticipate the impact of urbanization on the availability of labor in the agricultural sector.
“We have to mitigate the trend of urbanization that is growing in the future. We continue to experience the degradation of the agricultural sector workforce from year to year,” she said at the opening plenary session of the First Session of the Indonesian House of Representatives for the 2022-2023 Session at the parliament complex, Jakarta, Tuesday.
She stated that the reduction of labor in the agricultural sector, the conversion of agricultural land, and the suboptimal productivity of food crops pose a risk of causing a food deficit.
The food supply, which partly relies on imports, he continued, will create vulnerabilities in food supply.
“The risk of supply which results in stock scarcity and price increases, as well as the risk of exchange rate fluctuations require us to pay more,” she said.
She also emphasized the importance of taking lessons from the disruption in world food and energy supplies that occurred due to global geopolitical conflicts.
The government, according to him, must increase efforts to achieve food self-sufficiency and national energy security so as not to depend on supplies from abroad.
“Slowly we have to start reducing our addiction to commodity exports. We need to strengthen investment policies aimed at strengthening the national industry in managing the added value of export commodities,” she said.
In addition, he stressed the importance of applying the principles of sustainable development and investing heavily in human resource development (HR) in a time of rapid technological development.
“There is no choice for us not to invest heavily in human resources,” said Puan Maharani. (ojn/bbs)
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