In East Java, home gardens help women cut food spending

Elly Burhaini Faizal
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta |
Fri, 03/09/2012 8:08 AM

A government initiative has helped women in Pacitan, East Java, reduce their individual household monthly food spending by Rp 195,000 (US$21.45) to Rp 700,000.

The program, Kawasan Rumah Pangan Lestari (KRPL), was designed to help rural women become self-sufficient in food production.

“Empowering rural women will be critical, as they are crucial partners in fighting hunger and poverty due to their key role in the food supply chain,” Yusni Emilia Harahap, a staff expert on environmental issues at the Agriculture Ministry, said.

The program promotes home gardens as a way for women to meet daily needs while reducing food expenditures.

“The model has been replicated in several areas and we hope that it can be expanded further with support from the Agriculture Ministry and other stakeholders who are concerned about food security,” Yusni said, adding that the project had been implemented at the local level in Central Java, East Java and South Sulawesi.

If successful and home gardens become widespread, the program would increase the nation’s food production and security, she added.

Yusni said that the agriculture sector was facing a heavy burden due to increased demand for food from a growing population.

“Amid limited food resources, it is crucial for us to maintain food sufficiency by making use of local resources,” she said during a discussion entitled “Empower Rural Women: End Hunger and Poverty”.

The program was held by the United Nations Information Center (UNIC) and the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) to mark International Women’s Day on March 8.

According to data from UNFPA, rural women comprise 25 percent of the world’s population, while the Food Agriculture Organization (FAO) said that women comprised half the global population of farmers.

However, women lacked resources, including financing, and less than 20 percent of all land owners were women, according to the reports.

Citing Agriculture Ministry data, Yusni said that the nation’s agricultural sector accounted for 15 percent of Indonesian GDP in 2010 and for 40 percent of the national work force.

Also at the conference, Dian Kartika Sari, secretary-general of the Indonesia Women’s Coalition for Justice and Democracy (KPI), said empowering rural women was a relevant issue for the nation.

Citing reports, Dian said 68,900 of Indonesia’s 70,000 urban and rural areas were villages. “It means that [more than] 95 percent of the areas in Indonesia are villages,” Dian said.

According to the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), the number of poor people in Indonesia reached 34.96 million people in 2008, 63 percent of whom lived in rural areas.

“The number of poor urban people are declining while the number of poor people residing in rural areas continue to soar. There is a huge development gap between rural and urban areas,” Dian said.

Meanwhile, Ita Nadia, a UN advisor to the Women’s Empowerment and Child Protection Ministry, said listening to and supporting rural women was fundamental to ending poverty and hunger and achieving peace and development that was sustainable.


Wonogiri, 9 Maret 2012

Sumber : http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2012/03/09/in-east-java-home-gardens-help-women-cut-food-spending.html