Indonesian Economic Activities

          Most of the people of Indonesia make a living by doing subsistence farming. Subsistence farming is the farming of crops for survival needs for an individual or group of people, and it produces little surplus. So, Indonesia does not export as many food products as it does other products. Therefore it must import food to help the people that do not farm survive. The main exported product in Indonesia is oil/petroleum. Indonesia is very rich in oil, which grants it a spot in OPEC. OPEC is a corporation of countries that are very rich in petroleum products. Thus, Indonesia exports more oil than it does any other product. Indonesia uses the money it receives from oil exports to help improve its infrastructure. The country spends most of its money on improving schools to help increase the literacy rate. Because of the increase of money put into the schools, illiteracy rate dropped from 61% to 23% in 1990. This country also exports precious minerals such as Bauxite, Tin, Nickel and Coal.
                  
          In the traditional perspective, Indonesia is rich in flora or plants. So many tribes and small groups of people use over 6,000 different species of plants for remedies and such. These people also use the flowers to sell to other merchants to make a small profit.

          There is also little commercial farming performed on the humus-rich lands of Indonesia. Most people prefer subsistence farming over commercial farming because large groups of workers must clear the forests that keep the land so rich in humus in order to farm over large plots of land. About 45% of people in Indonesia work in an agricultural-based job. This accounts for 17% of the GDP. Since Indonesia has many highlands, the people use terraced farming, which is the farming of products on hills and mountains by creating terraces throughout the different heights of the raised land. This really only helps the family the farmer is working for/with. And the population continues to increase. So the more mouths to feed, the more the country must spend on getting food imports, making them spend less money on the infrastructure. Therefore, the Level of Development, or LOD, is under developed or, in some cases, developing. And the Human Development Index or HDI averages around 0.6%.









 
Citations: http://www.asianinfo.org/asianinfo/indonesia/pro-geography.htm , Textbook page 645, 710-711 and https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/id.html , http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/Asia-and-Oceania/Indonesia-AGRICULTURE.html