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Douglas Kammen

With the regional and global spike in food prices it is naturally imperative that East Timor corner crucial sources of food, joining a queue of food deficit countries from the Philippines to Singapore. But how and why has East Timor - a land of subsistence agriculturalists and one of the world's poorest nations- been turned into a net food importer? And what is the future of East Timor's agriculture? Apparently the food security "problem" was not understood by the World Bank which, from 1999 to 2002, prioritized irrigated rice development over and above East Timor's traditional basket of staples of which corn was dominant. Indonesian rule after the 1975 invasion did extend wet-field rice, but they also left the rice paddies abandoned in 1999. With the crisis apparent, FAO in East Timor has only belatedly acknowledged the need to address non-rice agriculture. The "problem" today is that East Timor faces down the curse of other states drawing upon hydro-carbon rents for quick fixes, namely that it is cheaper to import just about everything - food included - and that agriculture - the life and blood of the country for millennium - is left to the market or to wither. But as Kammen also stresses, problems of overcoming cronyism and corruption at the interface of state and market are central to East Timor's future.


Douglas Kammen is Assistant Professor in the Southeast Asian Studies Programme at the National University of Singapore. He wrote this article for Japan Focus. Posted August 12, 2008.

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