http://www.smh.com.au/world/red-hot-chilli-prices-bring-a-tear-to-the-eye-20110107-19iu1.html
Red hot chilli prices bring a tear to the eye Toni O'Loughlin January 8, 2011 Hot commodity ... Indonesia is preparing a campaign to encourage people to plant chillies. The government plans to distribute free seeds to 100,000 households. Photo: Tatan Syuflana JAKARTA: Chilli prices in Indonesia have soared to record highs, provoking outrage in a nation that eats the tongue-burning spice for breakfast, lunch and dinner. At about $11 a kilogram, almost four times the usual price and more than the price of chicken meat, it has truly become a hot commodity on dining tables and in kitchens throughout Indonesia. ''If there is no sambal, no one eats,'' one disgruntled eater, Punyajengpipi, tweeted amid the flurry of commentary and news reports on the growing scarcity of the crushed chilli paste that accompanies almost every meal but is now in short supply. Unseasonably high rainfall and the volcanic eruptions of Mount Merapi have so severely culled crops that rotting chillies are now selling for more than $3 a kilogram and fuelling inflation. Last month's inflation rate, released this week, took the headline figure for last year to 6.9 per cent, well above the central bank's comfort zone of 4 to 6 per cent. Much of the rise was driven by food prices, which were up 15.6 per cent for the year, a significant rise in a nation where about 130 million live on less than $US2 a day and many spend at least 40 per cent of their income on food. With chilli prices eating into household budgets, there have been reports of people suffering headaches because they can no longer afford this essential ingredient. ''With rice you can lower your consumption, there are substitutes, but with chilli there's no substitute. You get emotionally satisfied, you get physically satisfied [from eating it] and when you don't it causes headaches,'' an agricultural economist and former head of the Agriculture Ministry, H.S. Dillon, said. But rather than give up chilli some households have opted to economise on eating. ''Normally I buy a kilogram of chicken a week but now I buy half a kilo,'' said Sundari, 30, a mother of one who earns about $100 a month as an office assistant in central Jakarta. Rising prices have also gouged the profits of street-stall food vendors who, fearing a backlash, have continued adding the spice. ''I don't want the customers to go away,'' Mohammad Amin, 30, who sells spicy chicken soup to office workers in central Jakarta, said. Under pressure from the electorate, the government has resorted to knee-jerk policy announcements. The Agriculture Minister, Suswono, said he was preparing a national campaign to encourage people to plant chillies and that free seeds would be distributed to 100,000 households. Meanwhile, rising inflation has exacerbated the central bank's dilemma. While core inflation - which excludes prices prone to volatility such as chilli - finished 2010 at 4.3 per cent, financial markets are demanding that the Bank of Indonesia increase interest rates. But an interest rate rise will only fuel the flood of foreign money pouring into the country and raise concerns about financial instability down the track. ''Tightening monetary policy by raising interest rates isn't going to change the weather but it's the only tool for fighting inflation that the market is comfortable with,'' a Standard Chartered Bank Indonesia senior economist, Fauzi Ichsan, said. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ Post message: [email protected] Subscribe : [email protected] Unsubscribe : [email protected] List owner : [email protected] Homepage : http://proletar.8m.com/Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
