What effects has the East Asian economic crisis had on farmers in Indonesia?
Nila Ardhianie: First, the economic crisis in East Asian has increased farmers’ production costs. They have to pay more in order to get fertilizer, seeds, farming tools and of course pesticides. These are mostly paid for with dollars, so when our currency weakens and the dollar goes up, the price of these inputs also goes up. Farmers’ living costs have also increased because of the crisis. The price of their daily needs goes up along with the dollar. What makes it worse is that the price of their products — especially rice, a product of most Indonesian farmers — does not increase significantly. This is because rice’s selling price is determined by a presidential decree. Here, you can see the unfair economic system in our country; farmers are not only a group of people who have heavy burdens, but their income is determined by the government. These problems come from the government’s macroeconomic policies and commitments toward the IMF. The government suddenly cut import taxes on rice
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