POVERTY REDUCTION STRATEGY IN SMALL ISLAND-MALUKU PROVINCE

Poverty is still a crucial problem in Indonesia, although the number tends to
decrease, about 39 million people in 2006 and 33 million in 2008. Most of poor
people live in rural areas particularly food crop farmer households. Strategy to
reduce poverty like Cash Direct Aid (BLT) or Rice for the Poor (Raskin) seems
only a medicine to heal the poor as social patology and to create dependency on
free aids not to prevent them from the cause root of poverty. Therefore the number
of poor people is still significantly great in villages, particularly in Eastern part of
Indonesia. Poverty rate in Maluku province is higher than national level, which is
about 30%. However, farmers in small islands, Maluku, are not poor farmer in
terms of inability to fulfill staple food but they are poor because they have no
strength to improve their low income. Farmers in small islands Maluku have local
staple food resources based on non rice such as sago, banana, cassava, corn,
fish and peanuts. In this case, Raskin program is a substitute rather than a
complementary to enrich local staple food. Therefore, the main strategy to reduce
poor farmers in rural Maluku is not to provide free aid or Raskin but how to
develop small scale agribusiness based on community and local resources. To
implement this program, it depends on the intervention of local government and
politician which is very important to support and facilitate the small scale
agribusiness based on community and prime commodity in small islands of Maluku.
The basic strategy to reduce poverty among actively poor farmers are not free
market but empowering through subsidies of input production, agroprocessing
technology and sea transportation cost as well as market access and price protection
trhough institutional strengthening due to price monopoly of local traders. Once
local farmers have achieved self-reliance, the role of local government should be
changed from regulator to facilitator.
Keywords: Poverty, Free Market, Market Acces, Sosial Patology, Intervention,
of Local Goverment, Self-reliance.