Contesting Values In Agropolitan Development Policy In Indonesia

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JURNAL TATA LOKA; VOLUME 10; NOMOR 2; MEI 2008 © 2008 Biro Penerbit Planologi UNDIP

C ONTESTING VALUES IN A GROPOLITAN D EVELOPMENT P OLICY IN I NDONESIA Oleh:

Prihadi Nugroho Jurusan Perencanaan Wilayah dan Kota, Fakultas Teknik, Universitas Diponegoro

Abstrak: Pengenalan kebijakan pembangunan agropolitan oleh pemerintah indonesia telah dimulai sejak tahun 2002 yang diindikasikan dengan pendekatan parsial bagi pembangunan perdesaan. Pemerintah mengambil kebijakan tersebut dengan memperhatikan analisis pertimbangan kasus per kasus (kasuistis)mengingat kejadian apa yang sebenarnya terjadi saat itu. Sebenarnya penciptaan sebuah kebijakan kebanyakan dipicu oleh efek krisis asia tahun 1997 dimana pertanian dan sektorsektor perdesaan memikul beban dalam menggerakkan output ekonomi dan memberikan kontribusi terhadap penciptaan lapangan kerja baru. Pada momen lain yang memberikan alasan logis dari pengenalan kebijakan adalah perundangundangan UU. No22 tahun 1999 tentang Pemerintahan regional. Undang-undang ini mendorong perubahan kekuasaan pemerintah daerah dalam usaha kebijakan-kebijakan pembangunan. Gabungan penekanan-penekanan itu selama waktu tersebut dan soal pertumbuhan pemerintah pusat bagi penguatan kredibilitas telah menjadi prinsip mendasar pengenalan kebijakan pembangunan agropolitan. Pada kasus ini, terdapat sedikitnya tiga nilai maksud pemerintah untuk mempromosikan: keadilan sosial, kepercayaan sendiri, dan ketersediaan. Sekalipun terdapat banyak fakta bahwa pemerintah secara dominan mendukung nilai keadilan sosial daripada yang lain, pemerintah dengan ikhlas untuk mendorong nilai tersebut tidak dapat dibongkar dari kondisi terkini. Hal itu berarti tekanan-tekanan yang berpengaruh diluar strukutr pemerintah mungkin memberi kontribusi dalam kemajuan kebijakan. Oleh karena itu, sekali pemerintah mengenalkan kebijakan-kebijakan particular, hal itu memungkinkan timbul pertanyaan apakah pemerintah benar-benar mendukung dan melanjutkan kebijakan itu atau hanya usaha untuk mengurangi permintaan publik. Kata Kunci : Kebijakan Nilai, Pembangunan Agropolitan, Pendekatan Kasusistis, Indonesia

INTRODUCTION Having a great potential as a big agrarian country, the development of agriculture and rural sectors in Indonesia has not demonstrated the performance level expected by many scholars. Until recent years these sectors have dominated the national labour force although their contribution in forming the economic output declines. Approximately 60 per cent of national labour force is contributed by agriculture sectors while its share to the formation of national gross

domestic product (GDP) is less than 25 per cent on average. In addition, their beneficial impacts in improving the domestic farmers’ standards of living are getting weaker creating a sustained rural deprivation. The trend of Nilai Tukar Petani or Farmer’s Exchange Rate, the indicator which is used to monitor farmer’s ability to purchase goods and services, is also becoming lower in contrast to the increase of basic needs and prices of goods and services. To make it worse, the intensified pressures of urbanisation to rural re-

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gions particularly in Java Island since 1980s, have diminished the opportunities of rural people to cultivate farmlands. The urban settlement growth outwards has changed many agriculture land uses to urban properties and facilities. It is not surprising when the statistics shows that more than 70 per cent of farmers has no longer occupied their own lands or been working in nonagriculture sectors. Such contradictory situation partly is associated with the lack of government attention on the importance of these sectors on national development. Since 1970s the Indonesian government has pursued high economic growth by promoting rapid industrialisation (Hill 2000, p.11). Policies that support this sector are more favoured than those that promote agriculture and rural sectors. Theoretically, industrialisation can promote high economic growth through capital accumulation processes and economic turnovers. By concentrating capitals in industry sectors total production efficiency can be achieved and their spillovers of benefits can be transmitted effectively downward to the lower sectors. However, the economic benefits resulting from the achievement of industrialisation strategies in fact could not help the redistribution of welfare to rural economy. Many studies have shown that accelerated industrialisation led to overexploitation of rural economies. On the other hand, many agriculture- and rural-oriented policies in the past have failed to link these sectors into the mainstream economy. Most of these policies were built by using sectoral approaches, which led to sector isolations within the national framework of economic development. Paradoxically, instead of promoting selfreliance, these policies have resulted in higher dependencies of agriculture and rural sectors to urban economy. Such circumstance has contributed to policy failures in lasting self-sufficiency in food production as part of domestic food security programs. To answer these problems, the Indonesian Government introduced agropolitan development policy in 2002. This policy offers an integral approach for accelerated rural development. There are at least three key values the government intends to promote in this policy: social equity, self-reliance, and self-sufficiency. Basically they relate to one another to underpin the policy existence, but the government tends to promote social equity as the dominant value.

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The reasoning of this preference does not only rest on the nature of government responsibility to redistribute welfare across the country, but also is shaped by the ‘new’ recognition of its importance to national economy, in particular in contributing to overcome economic shocks. The experience from the 1997 Asian Crisis portrayed how the agriculture and rural sectors remained important in providing supportive livelihood for urban workers. While a plenty of urban industries collapsed during the Crisis which resulted in a sudden massive unemployment, these sectors could create employment opportunities through informal sectors and small and medium businesses. However, it seems that the government only advances agropolitan development with regard to its merits to relieving increased critics to government to recover national economy. I argue that the introduction of agropolitan development policy only represents the government politics to strengthen its credibility instead of paying greater attention to the improvement of agriculture and rural sectors. This policy has merely demonstrated the practice of instrumental rationality model, where the government tends to weight the importance of particular values with regard to their pragmatic functions to overcome development problems in particular context of time and place (Thacher & Rein 2004, pp.457-458). This paper then is aimed to scrutinise how this model is relevant to balancing value conflicts in the agropolitan development policy. Having a great potential as a big agrarian country, the development of agriculture and rural sectors in Indonesia has not demonstrated the performance level expected by many scholars. Until recent years these sectors have dominated the national labour force although their contribution in forming the economic output declines. Approximately 60 per cent of national labour force is contributed by agriculture sectors while its share to the formation of national gross domestic product (GDP) is less than 25 per cent on average. In addition, their beneficial impacts in improving the domestic farmers’ standards of living are getting weaker creating a sustained rural deprivation. The trend of Nilai Tukar Petani or Farmer’s Exchange Rate, the indicator which is used to monitor farmer’s ability to purchase goods and services, is also becoming lower in contrast to the increase of basic needs and prices of goods and services. To make it worse, the

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CONTESTING VALUES IN AGROPOLITAN DEVELOPMENT POLICY IN INDONESIA

intensified pressures of urbanisation to rural regions particularly in Java Island since 1980s, have diminished the opportunities of rural people to cultivate farmlands. The urban settlement growth outwards has changed many agriculture land uses to urban properties and facilities. It is not surprising when the statistics shows that more than 70 per cent of farmers has no longer occupied their own lands or been working in nonagriculture sectors. Such contradictory situation partly is associated with the lack of government attention on the importance of these sectors on national development. Since 1970s the Indonesian government has pursued high economic growth by promoting rapid industrialisation (Hill 2000, p.11). Policies that support this sector are more favoured than those that promote agriculture and rural sectors. Theoretically, industrialisation can promote high economic growth through capital accumulation processes and economic turnovers. By concentrating capitals in industry sectors total production efficiency can be achieved and their spillovers of benefits can be transmitted effectively downward to the lower sectors. However, the economic benefits resulting from the achievement of industrialisation strategies in fact could not help the redistribution of welfare to rural economy. Many studies have shown that accelerated industrialisation led to overexploitation of rural economies. On the other hand, many agriculture- and rural-oriented policies in the past have failed to link these sectors into the mainstream economy. Most of these policies were built by using sectoral approaches, which led to sector isolations within the national framework of economic development. Paradoxically, instead of promoting selfreliance, these policies have resulted in higher dependencies of agriculture and rural sectors to urban economy. Such circumstance has contributed to policy failures in lasting self-sufficiency in food production as part of domestic food security programs. To answer these problems, the Indonesian Government introduced agropolitan development policy in 2002. This policy offers an integral approach for accelerated rural development. There are at least three key values the government intends to promote in this policy: social equity, self-reliance, and self-sufficiency. Basically they relate to one another to underpin the policy existence, but the government tends to

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promote social equity as the dominant value. The reasoning of this preference does not only rest on the nature of government responsibility to redistribute welfare across the country, but also is shaped by the ‘new’ recognition of its importance to national economy, in particular in contributing to overcome economic shocks. The experience from the 1997 Asian Crisis portrayed how the agriculture and rural sectors remained important in providing supportive livelihood for urban workers. While a plenty of urban industries collapsed during the Crisis which resulted in a sudden massive unemployment, these sectors could create employment opportunities through informal sectors and small and medium businesses. However, it seems that the government only advances agropolitan development with regard to its merits to relieving increased critics to government to recover national economy. I argue that the introduction of agropolitan development policy only represents the government politics to strengthen its credibility instead of paying greater attention to the improvement of agriculture and rural sectors. This policy has merely demonstrated the practice of instrumental rationality model, where the government tends to weight the importance of particular values with regard to their pragmatic functions to overcome development problems in particular context of time and place (Thacher & Rein 2004, pp.457-458). This paper then is aimed to scrutinise how this model is relevant to balancing value conflicts in the agropolitan development policy.

THE CONCEPT OF AGROPOLITAN VELOPMENT REVISITED

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The concept of agropolitan development was created by Friedmann and Douglass in 1975 to deal with the problems of dichotomy between urban and rural economies in the Asian developing nations. Since 1960s these countries have adopted growth-pole strategy for pursuing high economic growth, where industrialisation was praised as economic prime mover. However, this decision later on created two faces of national economy which were mutually disruptive. Modern industrialisation in urban areas has led to overexploitation of rural resources while the persisting traditional peasant economy on the other hand, has augmented the demand of urban services to rural areas. Consequently, this strategy encouraged deteriorating effects for both

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urban and rural regions such as urban congestion and slums, the lack of rural resources, and long-lasting rural poverty (Friedmann & Douglass 1978, pp.164-177; Lo & Salih 1981, pp.124132). The agropolitan term per se comes from ‘agriculture’ and ‘polis’ (cities), thereby agropolitan simply can be defined as cities that are surrounded by agriculture fields. This strategy attempts to strengthen the existing rural centres or small towns in providing urban services to rural communities. In doing so, there are three key features that underpin the theory. First, the creation of an effective agropolitan district requires limited size of rural space for meeting the economics of scale. Each district is designed to serve 50,000 to 150,000 inhabitants whom mostly engaged in agriculture-related activities. Second, the potential agropolitan centres must be equipped with sufficient basic facilities and infrastructure. This includes the provision of agriculture-related services (production supplies, agro-processing facilities and marketing services), social facilities (education, health, and government branches), and infrastructure (roads, electricity, telecommunication, and water systems) for creating rural decent life. Third, the power devolution to local governing authority is a prerequisite to ensuring the suitability of development projects with local needs. This attempt has two purposes: appreciating local communities in preserving their own traditions and strengthening local capacity to manage their own developments (Friedmann & Douglass 1978, pp.184-186). In Indonesia the agropolitan development was adopted as government policy in 2002. This policy was endorsed by the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) in accordance with the Ministry of Settlement and Regional Infrastructure (MSRI). Its main purpose is to increase rural people’s income and welfare by fostering competitive agro-business systems through decentralised sustainable local development. In doing so the development of agropolitan districts is articulated with national urban systems, through which the market networks and the improvement of agriculture commodities value-added can be attained. As the policy emphasises a ‘one district one product’ paradigm, only a few potential commodities will be promoted in these districts depending on their local competitiveness. A set of objectives has been proposed to empowering

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rural communities in local development, strengthening rural institutions, developing agrobusiness systems, improving basic facilities and infrastructure, and creating friendly business climate (Lukitaningsih 2004; Ditjen Mukim 2004; Andri 2006; Rustiadi & Hadi 2006). Basically most of the original agropolitan concept has been endorsed by the GOI in the making of agropolitan development policy. The government realised that the urban infrastructure provision to rural regions plays significant role in stimulating the development of agropolitan districts. Therefore, the government promotes the improved connections of rural economy into the urban networks for ensuring the marketing of potential agriculture commodities. But, such adoption is incomplete for realising agropolitan development policy. The government approach which mostly stresses on the improvement of physical resources such as rural infrastructure and agro-business facilities is not enough to overcome the problems of rural backwardness. One problem is related to the geographical distance between rural region which varies across the country. In Java Island the prerequisite of commuting distance (5 – 10 kms) may be applied as the size of rural districts is relatively small. However, this condition may not be applicable in other islands like Kalimantan and Papua where the distance between villages may require overnight travel. As a result, this approach will probably imply on the excessive costs of building the adequate rural infrastructure. Another problem is associated with the devolution of power to rural communities. In the original concept Friedmann and Douglass suggest the importance of giving rural communities sufficient authority to decide the direction of their own agropolitan development. In Indonesia context this condition cannot be applied satisfactorily because the village governments have no authority to allocate and redistribute resources through financing and budgeting mechanisms. Village governments only functions as the lowest administrative units with the main duties of providing support to the higher governments in delivering development projects and administering citizenship issues at village level. Hence, to make the concept workable the GOI preferably strengthens the capacity of small towns at subdistrict level, which called as kota kecamatan. The subdistrict governments have more autonomous authority in determining local

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developments even though their financial resources are attached to municipal or district governments. This means that the authority of subdistrict governments to promote local developments is limited to and bonded to the municipal or district governments. According to the Law No. 32 Year 2004 about Regional Governance, municipal or district governments are the lowest level of tiers of government which have authoritative role undertaking local development financing and budgeting. Aside from its limitations, there are still some principal functions that these towns may perform in supporting agriculture development, i.e. the centre for agricultural trade and transportation, agricultural support services, agro-industries and non-farming activities. Meantime, the peripheral rural areas surrounding these towns are designated for functioning as production centres, or called as kawasan sentra produksi (KSP). According to Badan Pengembangan Sumber Daya Manusia Pertanian (BPSDMP) or the Human Resources Development Agency in the MOA, KSP may represent a number of villages or hamlets which carry out some criteria as follows: • Covering a certain territory with the size of population between 5,000 to 15,000 or equivalent to 1,000 – 3,000 households with approximate 30 minutes of road travel distance to the main agropolitan centre; • Having potential commodities; • Having potential cultivating farmlands with agro-ecology features are suitable to the development of potential commodities; • Agriculture products cultivation is the prime economic activities; • Having sufficient agriculture products storage facilities; • Having some agriculture-based cottage industries that support the potential commodities; • Having local marketplaces for potential commodities; • Having sufficient infrastructure and suprastructure that carry out local norms and standards of living; • Having a perimeter closure between 2 – 5 kms (BPSDMP, 2002). In addition, KSP is vertically linked to some agropolitan subcentres and main centre. Principally, agropolitan subcentres may appear as small towns or subdistrict capitals which play the roles

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of collecting potential commodities from the KSPs for more advanced agro-processing and marketing. Meantime, the agropolitan centre can be viewed as the highest level in an agropolitan district, which may appear as medium towns, larger subdistrict capitals or district capitals. According to BPSDMP (2002), the features of agropolitan subcentres (kota tani) are: • Representing Daerah Pusat Pertumbuhan Agribisnis (DPPA) or Agro-business Growth Centre; • Covering a certain territory with population size of 15,000 – 75,0000 inhabitants or equivalent to 3,000 – 15,000 households with approximate 15 minutes of road travel distance to main agropolitan centre, and having at least three KSPs; • Having some potential commodities from its supporting KSPs; • Agriculture products cultivation is the prime economic activities; • Having small and medium agro-industries which are using material inputs form its KSPs; • Having potential cultivating farmlands with agro-ecology features are suitable to the development of potential commodities, and having limited area of services to agrobusiness activities; • Having local marketplaces for KSPs’ products; • Having sufficient urban infrastructure and facilities; • Having sufficient storage facilities that support the collection of KSPs’ products; • Having grociery markets outside of the agropolitan district; • Having a number of nongovernmental organisations that support the development of agro-business activities; • Having a perimeter closure between 10 – 15 kms. The characteristics of agropolitan centre (kota tani utama) are as follows: • Representing DPPA; • Covering a certain territory with population size of 75,000 – 225,0000 inhabitants or equivalent to 5,000 – 45,000 households; • Having some potential commodities from its supporting subcentres;

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• • • •

CONTESTING VALUES IN AGROPOLITAN DEVELOPMENT POLICY IN INDONESIA

Having sufficient storage facilities that support the collection of KSPs’ products; Having urban infrastructure and suprastructure; Having grociery markets outside of the district; Having medium and large agro-industries which are using material inputs form its KSPs;

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M M

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Having trading houses and agro-business workshops; Having agriculture research and development institutions; Having a local development meeting forum; Having agro-business financial institutions; Having a perimeter closure between 15-35 kms.

LEGEND I first order market area II second order market area III third order market area M1 the marketplace for agropolitan centre M2 the marketplace for agropolitan subcentre M3 the marketplace for commodity collections M4 the marketplace for commodity supports

Sumber: Christaller, 1979 Picture 1. The Market System of Agropolitan District Besides strengthening their economic functions, the increased authoritative capacity of agropolitan districts is also emphasised by the central government. Each district may establish specific self-governing institutions in determining and managing development projects. Within this framework the role of MOA is to provide technical assistance for local farmers and rural institutions in improving the quality of competitive products, agro-business and agro-processing activities and marketing networks. Meantime, the role of MSRI is to improve basic services of rural and agriculture-related facilities and infrastructure in agropolitan districts. Nevertheless, such government support is subject to the national development strategy and the availability of budget allocation. As a consequence, any initiatives come from below still cannot be prevented from interventions from higher levels of governments. Therefore, the agropolitan development policy can be seen as political tools of

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the central government in controlling developments at lower levels instead of giving away the rural communities in shaping their own livelihood (Soenarno 2004; Depkimpraswil 2006; Pusdata DPU 2006; Apriyantono 2007).

CONTESTING VALUES OF SOCIAL EQUITY, SELF-RELIANCE AND SELF-SUFFICIENCY IN THE AGROPOLITAN DEVELOPMENT POLICY Theoretically, there are at least two different approaches to find how governments balance conflicting values in the given policies. The first approach views government policies as a reflection of government efforts in resolving value conflicts. According to Lindblom (1965), governments play an important role as ‘machinery for resolving value conflicts’ in policy process; thereby, government policies are a mix of contesting values. Later, to find out which values are more favoured than others, Doern and Phidd

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(1983) suggest the use of policy map model. This model is useful to analyse the shift of government preferences to particular values by tracing back the possible combination of these values during policy process. The dominant values that appear in the final policy decision are likely to represent their virtue relative to others in responding to changing environment in the policy making (Botterill 2004, pp.200, 204-205). The second approach views government policies based on their pragmatic functions in solving particular problems. Rather than resolving value conflicts, this approach offers an alternative way in promoting particular values in the given policies, an instrumental rationality model. Developed from Weber’s idea, this model suggests rational thinking mechanisms as the most efficient way in the policy making by isolating

the preferred values relating to their usefulness in achieving policy objectives. This means that certain policies may contain different dominant values over time depending on the trade-offs among them to respond changing environment in the policy making (Thacher & Rein 2004, pp.457-458). The following sections will discuss how this instrumental rationality model applies in the agropolitan development policy. This rationalising process will be investigated by looking at the policy rationale, the policy objectives, and the policy implementation as presented in official documents, media reports and public speeches. There are three values I would like to analyse in line with the attempts of finding out the truth of how the government prioritises one value to another, i.e. social equity, self-reliance and self-sufficiency (see figure 2).

SOCIAL EQUITY

AGROPOLITAN DEVELOPMENT

SELF RELIANCE

SELF SUFFICIENCY

Picture 2. Three Values in Agropolitan Development Policy The rationale of the agropolitan development policy mainly emanates from the growing concerns of government officials, practitioners, academics and many other stakeholders on the strategic contribution of agriculture and rural sectors to the recent Indonesian development. The national economic upheaval due to the 1997 Asian financial crisis has contributed at most in reshaping the government view on their importance to national economy. Based on the 2003 National Socioeconomic Survey by the Indonesia’s Central Bureau of Statistics, during the crisis the agriculture sector has demonstrated exceptional performance. Before the crisis this sector absorbed around 50 percent of total labour force, albeit its share to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) declined to nearly 10 percent and the JURNAL TATA LOKA; VOLUME 10; NOMOR 2; MEI 2008

farmer’s purchasing power (Nilai Tukar Petani) dropped to 15 percent. In contrast, after the crisis the agriculture employment soared nearly three percent and its share to GDP increased up to four percent while the other sectors were reluctantly recovered (BPS 2003). Such peculiar events have demonstrated the endurance of agriculture sector in providing alternative employment for regenerating income households. Cash crop plantation and agrobusiness are some of those associated with this performance. At the same time, the rice field cultivation was increasingly worsening because of the increased prices of production factors combined with the prolonged shortage of land ownership (Irawan 2006). Responding to this trend, the government decision to launch agro-

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politan development policy has obtained right momentum. It reserves the renewed government commitments to promote agriculture and rural sectors as another leading sector of economy alongside manufacturing industries. The repositioning of agriculture role to the national economy is essential not only for building a policy support in improving the living standards of rural communities, but also in anchoring projects and investments for achieving the ultimate goal of agriculture development, i.e. sustainable food security. From this policy background the government is willing to promote the values of social equity and self-sufficiency. However, the same crisis has also encouraged another value, i.e. selfreliance. This value receives its legal support from the enactment of Law No. 22/1999 about Regional Governance, which emphasises the acknowledgment on decentralised governance and people empowerment in managing local development. Such democratic atmosphere has provided supporting environment for the growth of one pillar of the agropolitan development policy, i.e. power devolution to the local governing authorities. Hence, again we can see how the 1997 economic crisis can contribute in fostering self-reliance value in the making of agropolitan development policy. Another source for investigating the government willingness to promote or protect particular values rests on the policy objectives. To some extent, the statement of policy objectives functions as legalised promise, on which the promise of development resides. In the agropolitan development policy there are two building blocks of values that represent this promise. The first block of social equity value is represented by the government intentions to redistribute ‘income’, ‘welfare’ and ‘basic facilities and infrastructure’, whereas the second block of selfreliance value is represented by the keywords of ‘decentralised initiatives’, ‘the empowerment of rural communities’ and ‘the strengthening of rural institutions’. Meantime, the absence of keywords relating to self-sufficiency value cannot be viewed as the government ignorance on its significance to agriculture development. There are at least two reasons of its disappearance. First, the pursuit of self-sufficiency in agriculture production is regarded as a long-term goal involving intersectoral and interregional problem-solving approaches. Because this issue is complex and mul-

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tidimensional, the ignorance of comprehensive actions combined with the excessive desire for obtaining immediate result is unlikely to sustain policy success. For instance, in mid 1980s Indonesian farmers achieved self-sufficiency in rice production supported by highly protective policies such as subsidies, micro-credit and government control on rice distribution. However, this success story only demonstrated the fulfilment of national minimum amount of rice production, but failed to upgrade the domestic farmers’ wellbeing. Those protective policies could not shield the farmers from market pressures, which emerged in many forms like the fluctuated prices of production factors, the increase of low-price imported agriculture commodities and the expansion of urban land-use to rural areas. As a result, such achievement contradicted to the problems of rural deprivations that remained exist (Irawan 2006). Second, the governing period is often considered as a constraint why the government officials deliberate their policies. This means that social, economic, and political changes surrounding this period are likely to contribute in directing the practices of governance. For instance, under the more democratic era following the fall of centralised-authoritarian regime in 1998, public transparency and accountability have been the heart of contemporary public governance in Indonesia. The inability of government officials to complete particular public services will not only affect to individual reputation and institutional credibility, but probably will increase public distrusts. In this sense, the reluctance of government officials and institutions to promote self-sufficiency value is plausible. From another perspective such attitude is viewed inseparable from the increased tension of political pressures surrounding the government agencies. It is very often that they are being trapped in the middle of political bargains by the number of interest groups, thus the policy values can be regarded as part of government politics. For instance, in recent years the GOI has remained importing rice although the domestic production can meet the minimum level of consumption. Such peculiar practice then has raised broad hesitation of that the agropolitan development policy cannot be counted for promoting self-sufficiency value (Pikiran Rakyat 2003). So far the prominence of these three values is favoured by the government in proposing the agropolitan development policy. This emphasis

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is needed as part of institutional reform in improving agriculture development in Indonesia. As exemplified in the case of Rice SelfSufficiency Program, the government failure in producing comprehensive actions is predominantly caused by the prevailing partial and sectoral approaches of development. Hence, building a concrete institutional framework should be inherently taken into account at the preliminary stage of policy making process. Regarding agriculture development, such recognition will place agriculture sector as a subset of broader economic development which are interlocking the other sectors (Kawagoe 2004, pp162-163). In this sense, the values of social equity, selfreliance and self-sufficiency will emerge as common commitments among government agencies and other stakeholders for taking shared responsibility to succeeding the implementation of agropolitan development policy. The interplay between these values has drawn growing concerns from politicians and policymakers following the 1997 economic crisis. Although many policies in the past have recognised these values, they were acknowledged as part of bureaucratic language or political rhetoric for appealing policy support. If not, they were being subordinated by profitability and efficiency values, ‘the magical words’ which were frequently used by politicians and bureaucrats to highlight their importance on the pursuit of high economic growth and competitive advantages. According to Hill (2000, p.11), during 1980s the Indonesian economy was benefiting from high economic growth, where export promotion, foreign investment and privatisation were fortified as some of economic jargons intensively pronounced by political leaders and senior government officers to underpin national development strategy. As a result, agriculture and rural development policies remained marginalised under such government politics. Therefore, it is no wonder if social equity has drawn much attention from the government. It is reflected in the policy background as part of ‘a lifetime struggle’ in the modern history of Indonesian development, on which any governing regime must deal with the persisting problems of regional disparities intertwined with the diverse nature of country’s origins. The empirical challenges of development which emerge in the forms of rural poverty and rapid urbanisation have also soared intensive criticisms over government failure in designing appropriate macro-

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economic policies (Hill 2000, pp.230-239). Thus, the importance of social equity is asserted in the beginning of policy objectives, where the government will provide rural communities equal opportunity to improving their livelihood through the increased provision of facilities and infrastructure (Ditjen Mukim 2004). This promise is realised in the policy implementation, where the MOA has allocated Rp 100 million per village as revolving fund to support the development of on-farm and off-farm activities, and the MSRI has continued to build roads, bridges, irrigation systems and other relevant facilities for supporting the agropolitan development policy (Soenarno 2004; Antara 2007). The similar commitments have also demonstrated by the current president and parliamentary members. The president has reasserted the government will to support the acceleration of equity promotion programs in the Mid-term Development Plan 2004 - 2009, in which the agropolitan development policy is regarded as part of national strategy. Meantime, the policy support from parliamentary members is associated with the policy objectives to increase the farmers’ wellbeing (Setneg 2006; Republika 2007). On the other hand, the values of self-reliance and self-sufficiency are less favoured by the government, mainly because they can spread conflicting and contradictory practices, and particularly for self-sufficiency, its promotion seems to be unrealistic vis-à-vis the existing government capacity and government politics. In the case of self-reliance, the government has demonstrated a strong commitment to encourage democratisation at all levels of government (Setneg 2006), from which the implementation of selfgoverning practice has obtained a strong support from the top executive of government structure (Ditjen Mukim 2004). However, the government has also noticed the lack of government capacity at the central and local levels in providing adequate amount of funding and personnel, developing and managing appropriate agropolitan projects, and coordinating the implementation of these projects (Pikiran Rakyat 2003; Republika 2007). Also the lack of rural institutions capacity for conducting self-governing practice is also questioned, mainly because they keep maintaining highly dependencies on central government projects and assistance. Although the local development projects are proposed from below,

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the final approval remains on the hands of central government. Finally, the promotion of self-sufficiency in this policy is less dominant than the first two. Self-sufficiency in food production is a longterm objective which is determined by the realisation of social equity and self-reliance values. In addition, achieving self-sufficiency in food production cannot be confined in the agropolitan districts only. According to Soenarno (2004), by 2035 the Indonesian population is predicted will achieve 400 million. This condition will lead to the food crisis since the problems of low productivity level of and the limited market penetration of domestic agriculture products are not resolved. As a consequence, the dependencies on imported agriculture products will remain high. Moreover, the realisation of self-sufficiency value seems unrealistic, because there is less concern from the government in initiating land reform policy to provide sufficient amount of land cultivation, and promoting agro-industries to provide affordable agriculture production factors (Deptan 2006; Irawan 2006).

CONCLUSION To sum up, social equity value by far can be regarded as the most dominant value in the agropolitan development policy in Indonesia. Its emergence seems to represent the real government will in this policy. However, by looking back at its historical background the policy enactment is inseparable from political manoeuvre and socioeconomic change surrounding the policy-making process. Such government undertakings demonstrate how the logical reasons for the enactment of agropolitan development policy have been built by using case-by-case judgment approach (casuistry). This approach proposes a moral taxonomy in response to the features of particular conditions (Thacher & Rein 2004, p.476). The moral taxonomy is represented by the promotion of equal redistribution of facilities and infrastructure to rural communities for improving their living standards. By putting this moral taxonomy into the real conditions of rural backwardness, the government builds arguments for shaping the willingness to pay much attention to agriculture and rural development. In this sense the government politics for relieving public uncertainties by favouring policies that support rural livelihood in which most of population rely on meets its target, so that the government can obtain increased public trusts. How-

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ever, whether the policy is really intended to improve rural livelihood is another question. It is required further research to investigate the effectiveness and impacts of agropolitan development policy in upgrading the standard of living of rural communities and the capacity of rural institutions.

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