Food Sovereignty of Communities in the Margins of the Nation: Staple Food and Politics in Mentawai, West Sumatra

DOI

10.2991/soshec-17.2018.32How to use a DOI?

Keywords

food assistance, Mentawai, staple food, food sovereignty

Abstract

In Indonesia the main staple food is often perceived to be limited to rice consumption. This is perhaps enforced by the beras sejahtera Rastra government 2017 program in distributing rice quotas to the economically challenged groups in society, and secondly by the virtue of a strong government focus on rice self sufficiency programs. However, Indonesia has a variety of regional staple food. On Siberut Island the rural diet traditionally includes sago, taro and banana. The availability of those staple foods is chiefly governed by the cultural acquired harvesting skills and the precise pockets that encourage the planting of certain food types on the island. Both, the current governments rice assistance program and the policy to advance rice cultivation, is perhaps at odds with the tradition and land condition, which requires closer investigation. This research was conducted in several villages on Siberut Island, using a qualitative approach and data collection. The main findings showed the potential to increase the yields of traditional staple foods. It was feared the introduction of intensive rice farming would perhaps divert rural resources away from the traditional gathering of local food or the planting of taro and banana trees. This trend could have an adverse effect on rural household food sovereignty.

Copyright

© 2018, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Maskota Delfi
PY  - 2017/10
DA  - 2017/10
TI  - Food Sovereignty of Communities in the Margins of the Nation: Staple Food and Politics in Mentawai, West Sumatra
BT  - Proceedings of Social Sciences, Humanities and Economics Conference (SoSHEC 2017)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 160
EP  - 165
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/soshec-17.2018.32
DO  - 10.2991/soshec-17.2018.32
ID  - Delfi2017/10
ER  -