The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Wed, 06/22/2011
The Indonesian Environment Forum (Walhi) and alms distribution organization Dompet Dhuafa announced Wednesday that they had collected Rp 149.6 million (US$ 17,400) since March to help farmers of 100 poor villages in Sikka Regency, East Nusa Tenggara, and in West Nusa Tenggara.
The money was part of their joint fund-raising program that runs for a year until March 2012 and aims at accepting a large donation to realize concrete food sovereignty programs to take place in the villages.
“Hopefully, we can accept donations of no less than Rp 1 billion,” Dompet Dhuafa president director Ismail A. Said said after the announcement. He said his organization collaborated for the first time with Walhi through this program. He emphasized food sovereignty was crucial to villages.
Walhi executive director Berry Nahdian Forqan said they wanted to use the money to realize programs on food sovereignty.
“We will provide seeds, production equipment, discussions and counseling,” he said.
“The country focuses on food security as we continuously import food from overseas,” he said.
He said that imported food was acceptable, but it “killed” local farmers livelihoods as the government did not guarantee the continuity of local food production from local farmers. “We want them to be independent,” Berry added.
According to Ika Septya Rini, the Walhi manager on fundraising, villages in both East and West Nusa Tenggara were chosen because they were the poorest in the country, according to the Agriculture Ministry and Dompet Dhuafa.
“Each farmer earns less than US$2 a day,” she said. (fem)
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