News

President must protect farmers: SMC

NU Online  ·  Rabu, 21 Juli 2010 | 12:14 WIB

Jakarta, NU Online
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is expected to protect farmers who are now facing difficulties after they experienced harvest failures in a number of regions such as in Java and Sumatra, an NGO leader said.

"After all, the harvest failures happened at a time when the price of basic needs are on the rise of late that weakens their purchasing power," chairman of the Board of Directors of the Sabang-Merauke Circle (SMC), Syahgnda Nainggolan, said.r />
Nainggolan said that the life of farmers now was far from prosperous so that they deserved the greatest attention of the President and his protection.
He said that farmers at present were facing many problems such as poverty, weak bargaining position, access to financing, sales of their yields, harvest failure, weak of purchasing power and loan sharks.

Nainggolan said that the government should not ignore farmers because most of the Indonesian people lived on the agricultural proceeds, and that the government should put farmers in a respectable place.

"But what happens is that farmers continue to remain poor, or possibly they are made poor by the state because of the government`s ignorance," he said.

The SMC was established early in the 1980s by the Bandung Institute of Technology activists with the aim of assessing public polices. (ant/dar)