Budget Policy to Support Food Security Development in East Nusa Tenggara Province

Abstract

Budgetary support from the government is one of its forms of seriousness in an effort to foster the food security. This study aims to analyze the regional financial capacity, as well as the budget allocation for the development of food security in the East Nusa Tenggara Province (NTT), South Central Timor Regency (TTS), and Rote Ndao Regency. The two analytical methods used are content analysis and descriptive statistics. NTT Province has a medium fiscal degree, a high level of regional financial dependency, and a low level of local financial independency. The local governments of both TTS Regency and Rote Ndao Regency have an extremely low degree of fiscal decentralization, a very high level of local financial dependency, and are not self-sufficient in terms of local financial independence. Local governments need to generate local revenues to reduce the dependency on the central government. The percentage of the budget for the development of food security amounted to only 7.04 percent for the province, 7.46 percent for TTS Regency, and 8.94 percent for Rote Ndao Regency. The subsystems of food availability are still the focus of the food security development in the province and regencies. The budget allocations for food security deserve an optimal portion and should be prioritized on the subsystems that have been the major issues in East Nusa Tenggara.