Jakarta - The PRAKARSA and Tax and Fiscal Justice Asia (TAFJA) released research results on global value chains or global value chains (GVC) to small farmers and fishermen in the ASEAN region, namely Indonesia with palm oil and fishery commodities, Vietnam with coffee and rice commodities, and the Philippines and Thailand with rice commodities. Of the four commodities studied, in general, the condition of small farmers and fishermen in these four countries is in an unfavorable position.
Economic and Fiscal Policy Researcher The PRAKARSA, Panji TN Putra explained, of the four countries, Vietnam has index backwards and forward linkage which is greater than other countries in almost all commodities. “Vietnamese agriculture and fisheries have a higher index, the value of forward linkage Vietnam is 2,82, which means that when there is an increase in input from agricultural and fishery commodities, it is projected to be able to increase Vietnam's economy by 2,82 million USD," he explained.
Furthermore, Panji explained, the results of this study also showed that the agricultural and fishery sectors were the main sectors in driving the Thai and Vietnamese economies. So from the result GVC Participation Index, of all sectors in the four countries, Thailand and Vietnam have a higher GVC participation index than Indonesia and the Philippines. "This means that the agricultural and fishery products of Thailand and Vietnam are able to enter the global value chain," said Panji.
Meanwhile, Indonesia's position still dominates as the largest palm oil producing country in the world, followed by Malaysia. However, the condition of oil palm farmers in Indonesia is still experiencing various problems such as multidimensional poverty, labor violations, problematic work contracts and lack of access to health care.
"Besides that, there are other problems that may also be found in other sectors that these farmers and small communities only contribute at the lower level, and in value they do not get big profits," said Panji.
Meanwhile, in terms of gender, Panji explained, female palm oil workers are in a position that only becomes assistant workers for male workers. "This makes the position of women weak when compared to male workers," he explained.
This research further states that Indonesia is also the largest producer of the fisheries sector in the ASEAN region with an annual average production reaching 6,42 million metric tons in 2019. "So this is indeed quite a large supply for the ASEAN region," said Eka Afrina Djamhari, Research and Knowledge Manager The PRAKARSA.
In terms of the value chain, fishermen starting from small, medium and large supply their fish to the Fish Auction Place (TPI), through this TPI there is an open fish auction process to buyers or collectors which is then distributed to fish processing companies and then distributed to consumers. both large-scale such as restaurants and household consumers. In addition to domestic consumption, the catch is also exported to several countries, one of which is China with a fairly large value.
Eka explained that of all the actors in the fisheries sector, small fishermen are the actors who receive the smallest value from the existing value chain.
"This happens because small fishermen generally have limited capital, low wages and traditional fishing gear, so this affects their level of welfare," said Eka.
Not only happened to small fishermen, medium and large fishermen also encountered their own obstacles. “For example, medium-sized fishermen, who have the ability to catch fish up to 30 thousand metric tons, are not able to sail for too long and maximize their catch because they do not have high technology, the cost to go to sea is quite high, there is no cooling machine to store their catch. until it lands and is ready to be sold, while for big fishermen, they have obstacles in the form of complicated licensing and other problems that are almost the same as medium fishermen,” said Eka.
Another problem that is also revealed in this study is that ship workers who sail using medium and large ships still get violations in the form of no guarantee of safety, health insurance, low wages, and no work contract. Meanwhile, on the other hand, the owners of fish processing companies are the actors who get the highest scores compared to other actors in the fishery sector. "Because what they have produced is a much wider market," said Eka.
Meanwhile, in terms of gender, said Eka, female workers in the fishery sector are in a much lower and weaker position. "Women are much more vulnerable than men, women in the fishing sector occupy jobs with very low wages and high working hours, sometimes they can even work up to 17 hours a day and do not get paid in cash but in fish," he said.
