Indonesia

Indonesia is ACIAR’s largest partner-country program due to its proximity and strategic importance to Australia and to the imperative of reducing the large number of its population living in poverty. The Australia–Indonesia Partnership (AIP 2008–13) is a comprehensive plan of Australia’s support to Indonesia that reflects these priorities. It focuses on poverty alleviation, which remains a significant challenge with 49% of the population still living on less than US$2 per day. The majority depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. Strengthening agriculture (including the crops, livestock, forestry, marine fisheries and aquaculture subsectors) is critical for poverty reduction and equitable development across Indonesia as both underpin the country’s economic growth strategy. ACIAR directly supports the AIP (Pillar 1) through a focus on ’sustainable growth and economic management’, especially in improving rural growth and livelihoods.

Research is a priority for the Australian Government in its program of development cooperation with Indonesia. The AIP 2008–13 emphasises that ‘support for applied research will be increasingly important in informing debate and policy settings in Indonesia, including in regional areas. Support will be given to partnerships between Australian, Indonesian and multilateral institutions (where relevant) that can improve Indonesia’s capacity to identify relevant research topics and improve the quality of applied research...’. ACIAR’s research contributes to this through the application of agricultural policy, agribusiness development and technical research for development to support increased productivity and more effective and equitable access to markets from agriculture, forestry and fisheries.

In addition to supporting research on productivity, ACIAR partnerships are addressing related pest and disease management issues, including shared crop and livestock biosecurity concerns; postharvest processing; and market development issues. Protection of the resource base is supported through research collaboration on sustainable cropping, forestry and fisheries management, and through policy research on effective engagement in markets, particularly with respect to domestic agricultural policy settings.

The geographic focus of the Indonesia program encompasses some of the poorest regions (including six provinces in eastern Indonesia and two in Sumatra) as well as the more-developed provinces in Java and Bali. This gives the research program flexibility in addressing rural poverty through alternate approaches, including addressing food and nutritional security through enhanced productivity and food quality, and developing improved market linkages for high-value products sourced from smallholder production systems. It also facilitates better linkages between national and province-based research agencies.

Indonesia’s growing regional and economic status has changed the nature of development cooperation between Australia and Indonesia, with an increasing focus on aid delivered through partnerships and support for Indonesian government agencies and systems. ACIAR’s research program uses Indonesian systems for defining research priorities and the delivery of programs and projects. ACIAR works with Indonesian partners to involve next and end users during the development of projects to embed activities within value chains and at the farming community level, and to integrate researchers with a wide range of stakeholders—including farmers, the private sector, NGOs, extension services and policymakers where appropriate.

While the collaborative research program emphasises research delivery through partnerships, ACIAR also supports the longer term sustainability of research outcomes through individual capacity building (within both research projects and international postgraduate studies) and institutional development. In 2011 ACIAR will assist Indonesia in implementing a revitalisation of its agricultural R&D systems through a US$100 million World Bank-supported program, Sustainable Management of Agricultural Research and Technical Development, focusing on institutional strengthening within the Indonesian Agency for Agricultural Research and Development (IAARD).

Wherever opportunities exist, ACIAR seeks to implement its Indonesian research program as part of a whole-of-government approach with AusAID and the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF). Several ACIAR projects are currently being developed that respond to Indonesian priorities as part of the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement that is being developed between the two countries. The program is also delivered through partnerships with international development agencies such as the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) in the provinces of Papua and West Papua. An increasing number of ACIAR projects involve major private-sector partners sharing implementation and funding, with two notable examples being PT Mars Symbioscience Indonesia (cocoa and seaweed research projects) and PT Garuda Foods (peanut supply-chain research).

The medium-term research strategy is reviewed every 4–5 years through consultations between ACIAR’s research programs and key Indonesian research coordinating agencies and stakeholder organisations. ACIAR also determines priorities for individual sectors through focused consultations, the most recent being for the fisheries sector in May 2010.

Under the current medium-term research strategy, ACIAR’s program addresses the following key priorities:

Improving policies to underpin agribusiness development:

• Analysis and piloting of policy changes, including new and competitive trading relationships, to improve access for smallholder farmers to emerging markets
  
• Addressing policy requirements to support structural adjustment and agricultural diversification to enable rural transformation and meet market requirements
  
• Analysis of the ability of smallholders to increase product value as markets rapidly transform, and development of appropriate policy mechanisms to support these transitions
  
• Analysis of policy requirements to support fisheries production, postharvest management, processing and marketing of fisheries products

Strengthening livestock production and biosecurity systems

• Establishment of effective disease surveillance, control policies and systems
  
• Detection and management of risks of disease transfer with movement of livestock
  
• Establishment of control options and procedures to control zoonotic diseases
  
• Research to support development of the smallholder commercial cattle sector, particularly simple, effective feeding and management practices and improved supply-chain linkages with urban markets

Underpinning the development of competitive horticultural and field cropping systems:

• Technical and policy requirements for the establishment of low-pest areas and capacity development in quarantine of plant products
  
• Improved quality, pest and disease control, market access and value-addition in tropical fruit
  
• Improved production, pest management systems and market access for vegetables
  
• Development of postharvest handling and value-addition for tropical ornamental horticultural crops, spices and indigenous vegetables
  
• Restoration of tsunami-affected soils, farming systems and seed supply systems to improve field crop and vegetable production in Aceh

Profitable smallholder aquaculture systems:

• Policy options and planning to guide expansion, intensification and/or diversification of aquaculture
  
• Reducing disease constraints in shrimp farming through delivery of more-reliable disease diagnostic services and extension by farmer groups of better management practices

Enhancing capture fisheries management:

• Improved assessment and management frameworks developed for shared and common-interest fisheries
  
• Better management of illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing in seas managed by Indonesia alone, with attention to improving existing reporting and regulatory shortcomings

Enhancing forestry products and services:

• Development of policy and governance options as well as methodologies for implementing payments for environmental services, including climate-change mitigation, from forests that will benefit smallholders and local communities
  
• Improving productivity and reducing impacts from pests and diseases in commercial plantations
  
• Understanding the socioeconomic factors influencing effective small-scale commercial plantations
  
• Capturing more value from plantation wood products through improved processing technologies and development of new products matched to appropriate markets

Profitable agribusiness systems for eastern Indonesia:

• Improvements in productivity and profitability of crop systems in seasonally dry areas
  
• Enhancing productivity, sustainability and market access for smallholder coffee and cocoa producers
  
• Improved culture and marketing systems for mariculture species (lobster and seaweed)
  
• Enhanced productivity and profitability of cattle and pigs through improved management practices, feeding, marketing and policy environments.