Farmers' Purchasing Power in 2018 Increased by Only 0.1%

Indicators of Indonesian farmers' welfare showed slight improvement throughout 2018. This is reflected in the monthly farmer exchange rate (NTP), which increased by only 0.04% to 103.17 in December compared to the previous month. As a result, the annual NTP increased by only 0.1% from its position at the end of 2017, which was 103.07. For information, the NTP is one indicator used to assess the purchasing power of farmers in rural areas.

The increase in paddy rice prices and controlled inflation led to the increase in the NTP in December of that year. This NTP increase was supported by a 0.54% increase in the index of prices received by farmers (lb) in December, reaching 138.16 from the previous month. Meanwhile, the index of prices paid by farmers (lb) only increased by 0.50% to 133.93 from the previous month.

The NTP sub-sector for food crops experienced the largest increase in December 2018, namely 0.75% from the previous month, followed by the livestock farming sub-sector, which also increased by 0.17%. Meanwhile, other sub-sectors, such as the people's plantation NTP, experienced a decrease of 1.16% from the previous month, as did the fisheries NTP (0.04%) and the horticulture NTP (0.02%).