"If everything goes well, Indonesia should be able to be self-sufficient in five years,” Sony Heru Priyanto, an expert at Satya Wacana Christian University, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) Sunday, February 21.
“And then it can start to feed the world."
Hoping to become one of the world’s food producers by 2030, the government has announced plans to fast-track development of vast agricultural estates in remote areas.
“Feed Indonesia, then feed the world,” President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said after announcing the plans.
The first area targeted for development is 1.6 million hectares in the southeast of the largely undeveloped province of Papua, around the town of Merauke.
"We chose Merauke because it's the ideal place for food crop cultivation, such as rice, corn, soybean and sugar cane,” said senior agriculture ministry official Hilman Manan.
“Merauke district has 4.5 million hectares of land; 2.5 million hectares are ideal for cultivation.
"The area is flat and has a good climate. Its soil is appropriate for those crops. Sumatra is already congested with other plantations, such as palm oil, and Kalimantan is already full of mining areas and many plantation areas also."
Indonesia has been self-sufficient in rice since 2008 and is already the top producer of palm oil.
The country is the world's most populous Muslim state with Muslims making up around 85 percent of its 220-million population.
Opposition
To prevent monopoly, the government allows foreigners to control a maximum of 49 percent of any investing country.
"In order to avoid any forms of monopolies or land grabbing, we're limiting each company to a maximum of 10,000 hectares of land," Manan said.
He stressed that the government was selling land use rights, not the land itself.
To lure investors, the government offers incentives like tax breaks and reductions in customs and excise duties.
So far, investors from Japan, South Korea and the Middle East have shown interest in the Indonesian project.
But the cultivation drive is met with opposition from local farmers.
"We reject the concept of the food estate,” Indonesian Farmers Union official Kartini Samon said.
"The regular farmers' land will be taken by big companies and the farmers will be left with nothing."
Such worries are well known in other countries with similar schemes, such as Brazil and Madagascar, where there is deep suspicion about food and bio-fuel companies monopolising agricultural land.
There are also fears for the rights of indigenous Papuans, an ethnic-Melanesian minority who have long complained that their traditional lands are being unjustly exploited by outsiders.
“For us, food estates are another kind of land grabbing scheme. It's like going back to the era of feudalism."
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