A million dollar view in impoverished East Timor

Tag : Sky Fruit

Every morning, when Madalena opens her front door, she is facedwith what has to be one of the most beautiful views on earth. Highin the mountain ranges of Lequidoe, East Timor, she watches the sunspill over countless unspoilt peaks, with distant mists dissolvinginto a sky of impossible blue. When I mention how much land like hers would be worth in my homecountry of Australia, she looks at me as though I am an idiot. Ortactless. Or both. A widow with no regular source of income, Madalena may have abetter grasp on economic realities than I do. She does not think ofher view as a marketable entity. The beauty of her surroundingscannot help her to feed her children. The basic rules of economic growth are simple. If people wantsomething, then it is worth something. If they will pay more forit, then it is worth more. The expectation of profit is integral intransactions, but if the price is too high, people will stop buyingit, at which stage the price will fall. But recently, something has gone horribly wrong with these rules.The growing gap between rich and poor has seen the wealthy agree tobuy global commodities at rates that push them beyond the reach ofcommunities living in poverty. This phenomenon has been dubbed the global food crisis. In Asia, itmay as well be called the rice crisis. Thais and Cambodians don'task if you have eaten; they ask if you have "had your rice." It doesn't need to be jasmine or basmati - throughout thecontinent, from tropical Malaysia through to wintry China, themeasure of a family's food security is their ability to purchaseand lug home their own 25 kg (55 pound) bag of basic and belovedwhite goodness. In the last year, prices for rice have risen in every country inthe region, in some cases by 100 percent or more. A variety ofeconomic justifications can be made - rising cost of fuel, declineof the U.S. dollar, an emphasis on exporting over local marketsupply, reduced agriculture industries, low harvests due to naturaldisaster. But none of that means much to people like Madalena. She used to beable to buy a little rice to put on her table each day. Now,ashamed, she says her family eats rice once a week. "I try to feed my children three times a day," she says, "but theydon't get rice very often." The sting in all this is that rice is an introduced dependency inEast Timor, its roots in a former wave of economic colonisationthat pushed out traditional food crops like beans, maize andcassava, despite the land and irrigation requirements of growingrice successfully. East Timor grows some rice, but nothing near enough to besustainable. Most of the rice in Dili markets is imported fromIndonesia and ranges in price as well as quality. It's slightlymore expensive in remote Lequidoe because the cost of transportneeds to be covered. It's not even particularly nutritious. Children growing up in poorrice-based communities can suffer malnourishment because rice ispure carbohydrate, without vitamins or protein. Purchased,processed rice even lacks the healthy fibre present in its cruderform. Madalena would be better off returning to local crops of organic,healthy, fresh vegetables, but a rice-driven cash economy has nowbecome a way of life. Even up here. The capacity for residents of Lequidoe to earn money is afundamental challenge. There are no jobs around here. The ground isrocky and lack of irrigation infrastructure means only one harvesta year. Most families have a small plot of land where they growcassava, corn and a few greens. They hope for a good enough yieldto sell some at market, the only chance they have for cash. Madalena has given up on farming her land. She is not strong enoughto do it alone. She survives by selling the oranges from one tree,and every couple of years a calf from her one cow. Madalena's children mainly eat steamed cassava, donated by herfarming neighbours. Her youngest daughter Dilsia, 5, is"moderately" malnourished, though (revealingly in this land oflarge families) her condition has improved since three of her oldersiblings moved away from home to go to school in a nearby town.With less competition for food, she is getting a fairer share. This is good news for Madalena, who has been worried, not justabout Dilsia's health, but also about how to find money formedicine and the food she knows Dilsia needs. She and Dilsia have been attending classes at a nutrition post setup by World Vision to monitor and improve children's health in thisvillage. She makes sure they go to the cooking class whenever it ison; she learns about local ingredients she can add to cassava orrice to make it more nutritious, and Dilsia enjoys the food theyprepare together. At home, she tries to make the same dishes, measuring out herdwindling rice supply carefully. Six months ago she bought a sackfor $18. When she went back recently the same sack was $25 - morethan Madalena is able to earn in a month. A kilogram of rice in Australia, locally grown or maybe importedfrom a high-export Asian country like Vietnam or Thailand, coststwo to three times as much as it would in East Timor. But theaverage wage in Australia is just under $200 a day. In East Timor,where jobs are scarce and farming difficult, 40 percent of peopleearn 55 cents or less. This makes a kilogram of rice the equivalentof more than a day's wage. Would I pay $200 for a kilo of rice? Unlikely. Instead I wouldprotest and write letters and join movements, citing my rights, toend an illogical inflation beyond any possible sustainability ofeconomy. But the world's poor have never thought of themselves aspowerful consumers; there are no food riots in this quiet,malnourished, struggling village. I ask Madalena how she has managed alone to survive, keep herchildren clothed, fed and in school. "We have found it very hard," she says. "Every day is a challenge.But I am not really alone. My neighbours have supported me a lot. "I send my children to school because it is something for them todo. What they do in the future is up to them, and their educationwill help. But I think they will find it hard to be anything butfarmers - there is nothing else to do here." I look again at the breathtaking view. It looks like a land ofplenty - chickens chase their mother hens into the bushes, a goatwith her kid bleats and rears by the side of the dirt road.Madalena's orange tree is heavy with fruit. But none of it is destined for her table. So far down in theeconomic hierarchy that nobody can even see her, she still thinksof it all in terms of cash. She would rather have the money thatthe chickens are worth, so that she can buy what she needs -medicine, house repairs, clothes for her children, and mostimportantly, three meals a day for her malnourished Dilsia.
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