I propose that the similar concept should be applied by Bulog. They should make one single website to enable the farmers to sell their products digitally. This website will answer two main problems that have been explained before. In term of information discrepancy, the price of sembako can be sold by farmers directly to the buyers, without going through the cukong’s cycle. Not only that, this will bring forth another solution to solve the problem until its root causes, since it bridges the gap between producers and consumers, by shorten the cycle. The success’s story of executing this program is high, since the government has the authority to accommodate the farmers and stabilize the price. Not only that, as Indonesia is one of the biggest users of internet, e-commerce can help the farmers to sell their products nationally and internationally, which will triggers the villagers to stay in the village.
In order to execute this policy, there are several things that need to be prepared by government.
First, the government needs to build internet infrastructure in the village. As village does not have equal facility with the city, the government can work together with private sectors through private-public partnership with Google, Facebook and other corporations, since it is a promising opportunity to expand their business to Indonesia. Indonesia can take a benefit on this, by distributing the infrastructure equally to the village. This will fasten the economic development there there through e-commerce.
Second, the government needs to provide incentives for those farmers who are using internet to sell their products by Bulog’s e-commerce. The government can provide laptop, hand phone and other facilities that are needed for e-commerce. This should be done simultaneously with the socialization from the government in using this feature, in order to help them to use this feature effectively. Not only that, the government can also provide credit to the farmers that have been done this year, in triggering the market from the village.
I believe that e-commerce can be one of the best methods in fixing Global Value Chains (GVC) in the world. In order to fix GVC, we need to solve the problem from grass-root level, because producers –which in this case is the farmers are the center of gravity of fixing GVC. This will help the government to build the national economy through villages. As the economy in the village grows, it will create healthy competitions among the farmers, which will reduce the unemployment rate in the village. This will relieve the burden from the town to provide jobs to the newcomers from village. If our country has a capacity to provide a good quality of agriculture products, this will increase our exports rate, which will distribute our agriculture products to the needed countries.
Fixing GVCs can be only achieved, if every country can manage the National Value Chains (NVC) within their own country.
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Written by: Kevin Tan, the Founder and President of Indonesia Berbicara.
