| Summary: | Background and challenges to implementation
Indonesia is one of the biggest producers and consumers of tobacco
products (mainly cigarettes) and also one of the largest producers of tobacco.
Indonesia is one of eight countries who has not ratified the WHO FCTC. Currently,
Indonesia is at a crossroad in controlling production and consumption of tobacco
and tobacco products. The government is reluctant to effectively implement the
existing regulations on controlling production
and consumption of cigarettes and tobacco since he receives a large amount of tax incomes from tobacco products,
and tobacco
farming also absorb a large amount of agricultural labors.
Intervention or response
The existence of regulation that explicitly and comprehensively control production
and consumption of tobacco and tobacco product is a necessary condition to
Indonesia. Indonesia´s policy should be adapted to be inline with the situations in FCTC era. Strategies and programs in development of tobacco farming and business
need to develop to support tobacco farmers
in meeting the local tobacco demands and at the same time increase farmers'
welfare.
Results and lessons learnt
Most of the
farmers are poor, since they operate at low area of land, low productivity, high
production costs, and low price of output.
In addition, under the current policy regime, Indonesia imports a large
amount of tobacco, ranging from 45 to 75 percent of total domestic tobacco production, thus has negative
consequences on the prices of tobacco and the incomes of farmers.
Conclusions and key recommendations
The affirmative programs in developing tobacco business, including: development of
alternative crop to tobacco, provision of support programs to the farmers in
implementing this crop conversion, reducing tobacco import level by promoting
the use of domestic tobacco, and
improvement in tobacco marketing are needed in the future. These programs have to be firmly and consistently implemented to optimize local tobacco production, increase farmers'
incomes and at the same time reducing the poverty level.
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