Empowering the rural youth in food and agriculture is key to changing the future of migration in Indonesia
The world is “on the move”. Various forms of migration are having a profound impact on people’s food security situation. Globally, 224 million people migrate across borders annually, while 740 million move within their own countries. Sadly, there are also 64 million people displaced by conflict and persecution, the highest number since the Second World War.
The theme for this year’s World Food Day - “Change the future of migration; invest in food security and rural development” addresses the underlying economic, social and political drivers that cause large movements of people around the world.
People migrate especially from rural areas, because more than 75 percent of the world’s poor and food insecure live there. In Indonesia, two-thirds of the 28 million people below the poverty line, live in rural areas, and many families migrate for economic reasons, as they see no other viable option out of poverty but to migrate, be it to urban areas or to other countries.
In his speech at the opening ceremony of the Indonesia World Food Day commemoration in Pontianak today, Mark Smulders, FAO Representative to Indonesia and Timor Leste, highlighted the importance of investment in rural areas to change the future of migration.
“Comprehensive rural development can help on all fronts, eradicating poverty, curbing conflict, and empowering the rural poor to engage in a profitable and sustained manner in the food supply chain, will make migration a matter of choice rather than desperation”, said Smulders.
Migration itself also plays a positive role in rural development; seasonal migration is closely linked to the agricultural calendars, and remittances are a huge force for improving both rural welfare and farm productivity.
According to the World Bank, Indonesia ranked 14th among the world’s recipients of migrant remittances in 2015, with an estimated $10.5 billion sent from its workers living abroad, or about 1% of the country’s GDP.
The young generation is urgently needed to develop the food and agricultural sectors
Indonesia’s WFD theme “Mobilizing the Young Generation in Developing Indonesia’s Agriculture to become a World Food Basket” is linked to the international theme. It also aims to address the underlying causes of rural-urban migration with specific emphasis on the rural youth.
Over the past 15 years, urban areas in Indonesia have grown by 50 million people, while the total rural population has shrunk by 5 million. In 2016 alone, the net outflow of people from rural to urban areas stood at about 7 million people.
45 percent of the population now live in rural areas, and while 1/3 of the formal labor force country-wide is still in agriculture, their job becomes ever more important. With constant rural-urban migration, and in spite of population growth overall, we have fewer people living in the rural areas every year.
“The young generation is urgently needed in the rural areas. To stem the flow of migration out of the rural areas, we have to provide the right incentives, and demonstrate that being engaged in agriculture can be profitable, and provide for a comfortable living”, added Smulders.
In order to attract the younger generation to engage in agriculture, fisheries and forestry in a productive way, we must also emphasize the need for innovation, while investing heavily in vocational and technical schools, as well as extension services and access to credit. Furthermore, given the youth’s attraction to ICTs, we must provide the youth with access to the latest knowledge through e-Agriculture and E-extension systems.