Mangan ora Mangan.. yang Penting Merkantilis

Selama tiga hari berturut-turut Kompas memuat berita terpuruknya sektor pertanian Indonesia. Setuju, peningkatan produksi dan peningkatan pendapatan petani memang perlu diperjuangkan. Sederet masalah sisi produksi masih menghambat petani kita. Fluktuasi harga menjadi momok petani sementara akses bibit, modal, dan teknologi juga menjadi penghambat daya saing produk pertanian.

Kompas juga tepat mengagkat isu dis-integrasi ekonomi domestik ketika kondisi ekonomi eksternal sedang kacau. Tantangan geografis kita sebagai negara kepulauan menyebabkan segmentasi pasar dan terbatasnya economies of scale sehingga menjadi salah satu kendala pertumbuhan ekonomi. Sulit membayangkan perekonomian Indonesia bisa tumbuh seperti China karena kita punya hambatan infrastruktur. Oleh karena itu, meningkatkan integrasi pasar domestik sebaiknya menjadi salah satu acuan Kabinet ekonomi mendatang.

Tetapi konten sentimen anti-impor yang ditulis Kompas tiga hari berturut-turut membuat saya heran. Apakah pemahanam para penulis teresebut terhadap ilmu ekonomi makin melorot? Mudah-mudahan tidak. Tetapi artikel Kompas tersebut rasanya sudah "terjebak" dalam pemikiran merkantilisme abad ke 18 yang menganggap impor suatu kejahatan dan penumpukan devisa di dalam negeri sebagai barometer prestasi ekonomi.

Artikel tersebut menuliskan bahwa Indonesia telah "terjebak impor pangan" karena impornya yang kira-kira mencapai $5 milyar per tahun. Konten berita juga mengesankan perlunya "kebijakan berani" untuk swasembada produksi.

Saya tidak ingin masuk ke teknis ekonomi pertanian, tetapi saya ingin mempertanyakan beberapa hal yang muncul dalam artikel artikel tersebut.

Pertama mengenai impor dan devisa. Memang kita mengimpor sebagian pangan dan total nilai impor 2008 mencapai $5 milyar. Dari mulai gula, kedelai, dan komoditas pertanian lain yang kita juga produsen seperti ikan tertentu Indonesia pun mengiimpor.

Yang tidak ditulis Kompas adalah total ekspor non-migas Indonesia tahun 2008 mencapai $107 milyar. Ekspor produk perkebunan, pertanian dan perikanan Indonesia di tahun itu saja juga mencapai $29 milyar dan $21 milyar tergolong komoditas pangan (termasuk sawit, teh, kopi, perikanan). Lalu kalau kita impor pangan $5 milyar, apakah ini sesuatu yang mencemaskan bagi negara dengan penduduk lebih dari 250 juta jiwa dan termasuk dalam 20 negara dengan PDB terbesar?

Betul, impor menggunakan devisa dan ekspor mendatangkan devisa. Tetapi apakah perekonomian akan lebih baik dengan hanya mengumpulkan devisa? Penumpukan devisa hanya akan mengakibatkan Rupiah terapresiasi dan akhirnya malah menurunkan daya saing produk ekspor. Memang, salah satu cara menghindari masalah ini adalah dengan meniru China yang menukarkan sebagian penerimaan devisa ekspor kedalam aset asing (seperti US Treasury). Tetapi ini juga yang mengakibatkan ketidakseimbangan global yang pada akhirnya memicu krisis keuangan saat ini.

Kedua, apakah keberhasilan adalah jika apapun dapat disediakan sendiri? Apakah para penulis artikel tersebut belum pernah mendengar istilah intra-industry trade?

Contohnya begini. Mengapa negara produsen keju seperti Belanda masih mengimpor keju dari Perancis? Arab Saudi pun masih mengimpor kurma dari Tunisia atau negara Arab lainnya. Australia sebagai penghasil wool terbesar masih mengimpor kain wool atau jas ketimbang menjahit semuanya sendiri. Mengapa Eropa sebagai penghasil Airbus masih membeli pesawat Boeing, Embraer, atau produk IPTN? Jepang, sebagai produsen mobil dunia masih mengimpor Daihatsu Grand Max dari Indonesia. Lalu mengapa Amerika sebagai penghasil kedelai, gandum, dan produk teknologi tinggi masih mau impor kecap ABC dan Indomie dari kita?

Perdagangan membuka pintu bagi spesialisasi produksi sehingga produsen bisa mengeksploitasi skala ekonomi dan keunggulan komparatif nya. Perdaganan juga memungkinkan terjadinya spesialisasi produksi yang memberikan keuntungan terbesar. Ini kredo dasar teori ekonomi yang saya tidak temukan setelah membaca artikel-artikel tersebut.

Ketiga, apakah "kebijakan berani" itu berarti proteksi, subsidi, atau tata niaga? Kalau maksudnya proteksi, tidak ada gunanya untuk dibahas karena ilmunya sudah jelas. Kalau proteksi tersebut untuk mengurangi ketidakadilan karena subsidi pertanian negara-negara maju, jalankan saja mekanisme safeguard WTO secara transparan dan bukan lewat larangan ad-hoc. Kita tinggal perlu membuktikan kalau subsidi impor produk pertanian tertentu membawa akibat desktruktif oleh karena itu bea masuk perlu dinaikkan.

Kalau subsidi, saya setuju tinggal pertanyaanya mekanisme subsidi bagaimana desain subsidi yang tepat. Apakah meniru subsidi pertanian di Eropa atau Amerika yang terjebak oleh lobi politik? Apakah sebaiknya terarah (targeted) kepada petani atau dalam bentuk irigasi, bibit, dan extension services? Dengan perbaikan infrastruktur fisik, rasanya produk pertanian kita juga bisa kompetitif di dalam negeri. Miris rasanya kalau betul marjin keuntungan mengimpor jeruk China bisa lebih tinggi ketimbang mendatangkan jeruk Medan atau Pontianak.

Bagiamana dengan tata niaga? Kecuali beras yang memang punya bobot besar (22%) dalam konsumsi rumah tangga miskin, sulit menjustifikasi perlunya tata niaga untuk produk pertanian lain. Tata niaga dapat mendistorsi sinyal harga dan meningkatkan resiko petani terjebak dalam produksi komoditas tertentu saja. Katakanlah kita memaksakan adanya tata niaga kedelai. Bisa jadi harga kedelai naik secara artifisial sehingga petani tidak dibiarkan menanam produk dengan harga yang menarik seperti holtikultur (sayuran dan buah-buahan).

Keempat mengenai ketahanan pangan. I'm not an agriculture economist but why the concept of food security seems narrowly focused on the ability to produce rather on securing the ability to access food?

Bias and Romanticism

Aco wrote in the Diskusi Ekonomi (in Bahasa Indonesia) why rice import policy, which have larger number of gainers than losers, could not get thru. He proposed three possible answers: the gainers fail to coordinate its political power (the Olsonian logic of collective action), pure ignorance, and stubborn ideological stance.

The logic of collective action may be able to explain import ban, but not export restriction, because we find that regardless the number of net gainers or losers, people seem not to like the idea of international free trade. Import no, export also no. This is a symptom of an anti foreign bias (Caplan, 2007). For many of us, anything foreign is bad, dangerous, and threatening, including trade with foreigners.

Moreover, there seems to be a reverse-orientalism sentiment, that is, everything but western value is better. This observation is supported by the fact that conspiracy theory sells very well -not only to the illiterates but also the educated.

On ideological bias, there also seems a romanticism on peasantry. Paul Collier, the writer of excellent The Bottom Billion, wrote here (and read the whole discussion on food crisis, too):

Unfortunately, large-scale commercial agriculture is unromantic. We laud the production style of the peasant: environmentally sustainable and human in scale. In respect of manufacturing and services we grew out of this fantasy years ago, but in agriculture it continues to contaminate our policies.

and, indeed that:

In Europe and Japan huge public resources have been devoted to propping up small farms. The best that can be said for these policies is that we can afford them.

But developing country like us can not afford it. We don't have such luxury. So when we come up using public resources to develop the agriculture revitalization program, are we speaking the same language for large scale commercial agriculture?

Are we ready to give up the idyllic view of a small plot land owner peasantry for a large scale industry and see a transformation from myriad small peasant landowners class to become waged farmers working in a handful large scale agroindustrial companies?

High Rice Price Quiz

We know that:
a. The world rice prices hit the $1,000-a-tonne level for the first time
b. Indonesia’s rice production is estimated to be about 2m tonnes higher than consumption this year thanks to improving yields and an increase in the harvested area.

What can you infer?
Yes, sell the surplus and reap the windfall profit. I heard you said you always want to help rice farmers.

But the rice consumers might suffer, so, you said, we restrict export to tame the inflation. Why didn't you tell me the same story when domestic rice price is high and we wanted to import, but you said no? Let us be consistent, if the poor --and only the poor-- could not afford rice, provide them with the direct money subsidy. Let the middle and high incomes pay the market rate.

You know what, you can not talk about agriculture revitalization --itself a long term plan--, while at the same time propose rice export restriction. After all, you want to sell the agriculture output as many as possible at the price as high as possible, no?

Blame it on the liberalization?

Following the recent soy bean and other food commodities price hike, some people blamed globalization and liberalization of agriculture market as the main culprit. This is the logic (the abridged version): low import tariff drove down domestic prices so local farmers had little incentives to produce more. This creates high dependency on imports, which is bad because we are very vulnerable to global price fluctuations, like what we are experiencing now.

If we are talking about soy bean, then this kind of argument is fallacious. We have been a net importer of soybean since mid ‘70s. Long before the agriculture sector is liberalized. In other words, we have been dependent on imports since long ago. The second line of argument said that if we protect our farmers, at least our domestic production could have been higher so we can have a buffer stock as a cushion against global price fluctuation.

Actually, that can be true only if we are a big enough player in the global market. If we are a small player, like the case of soybean, then at best buffer stock can only ensure that domestic prices do not exceed global prices. But the overall trend of price increase may not be altered.

Now move to the food commodity in general. The fact is straight: the productivity of our agriculture sector is lower than that in the ’80-90s. Again, the question is whether liberalization of agriculture sector to blame. Let’s say that liberalization has got something to do with that. Nevertheless, these other factors have also affected productivity, and they have nothing (or less) to do with liberalization:

• Public investment in irrigation infrastructure is inadequate and has been declining. It needs about a third of the current central government budget to improve the irrigation infrastructure just to return to the mid-90s level.
• Investment in roads, especially rural roads, has also been declining. In 1994, public expenditure by all levels of government was 1.4% of GDP. In 2002 it was less than 1%. More than 40% of roads are in damaged or severely damaged conditions. Without proper roads available, it is difficult for rural farmers to reach the market it nearby towns.
• Real expenditure on agriculture research is only 0.1% of GDP (Bangladesh spends 1% of its GDP), and it is less than that in 1995. That explains the lack of invention in new, more productive crops or farming techniques.
• Only around 20% of land plots are certified. This explains the lack of access to credits that is still a problem among poor farmers.
• Domestic market failures resulting from imperfect or asymmetric information, bureaucracy, distribution chain etc. that creates a significant gap between the price consumers pay and farmers’ revenue.

Some of the problems are side effects of decentralization. There is still an unclear division of authority and responsibilities among central, provincial and district governments on infrastructure spending, farmer training or credit provision. But it’s sexier to be anti-liberalization than anti-decentralization, isn’t it?