Global ambition for a food basket: 7 facts about the food sectors

President Prabowo Subianto has ambitions to achieve food self-sufficiency in Indonesia within the next four years.. This food plantation program presents great challenges, given that failures have occurred repeatedly from the time of President Soeharto to that of President Joko Widodo.

“Brothers and sisters, I have declared that Indonesia must immediately become self-sufficient in food as soon as possible,” President Prabowo said during the inauguration speech of the President and Vice President on October 20, 2024.

The strategy, government will produce up to three million hectares of rice fields from the Moluccas to Central Kalimantan. “In fact, we are ready to become the food basket of the world,” he said.

Report Swallowing Indonesian forests (2021) traced the history of the failed food plantation program in Indonesia. During the time of President Jokowi, this program caused deforestation which is quite extensive from Sumatra to Papua. Among them, the Central Kalimantan food plantation program covers 770,000 hectares, Papua two million hectares, and North Sumatra 32,000 hectares. The impact is not an increase in food productivity but an increase in agrarian conflicts, massive environmental damage and even human rights violations.

This project has actually existed since 1996, when President Soeharto led the 1 million hectare peatland (PLG) development project in Kalimantan. Unfortunately, this did not work and caused wildfires that continue to recur during the dry season to this day.

Failure repeated when President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono spearheaded the project Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate (MIFEE) in Papua in 2008. The area reaches 1.2 million hectares. Unfortunately, poverty levels are increasing because people are losing the sago forests that are their source of food. In fact, the destruction of forests prevents them from hunting deer and pigs.

Today, President Prabowo has the same ambition. This includes making Indonesia the world's food basket by creating more rice fields. Here are the facts about the project food sector in Indonesia.

1. Destroy peatland forests

More than 1,500 hectares of peatland forest in Central Kalimantan destroyed plant cassava in this project. In fact, peatlands play an important role in adapting to climate change. Peat can absorb 20 times more carbon than tropical rainforests.

Unfortunately, the government continues to clear thousands of hectares of peatlands to plant cassava through national strategic projects in the name of food self-sufficiency.Indonesia's World Resources Institute (WRI) states that peat layers are not suitable for planting land. The deforestation that has taken place results in a loss of 62.25 tonnes of CO2 per hectare each year. This figure is equivalent to burning over 26,000 liters of fuel.

2. Move the palm function to the bush

Program food sector in Central Kalimantan, from the New Order era until 2023, it is at a standstill. Peat Monitoring Team find 600 hectares of plantation land which has just been abandoned. Patches of rice fields have transformed into bushes. even a number of cassava plants wither before they are ready to be harvested. Its size is the size of a human's little finger.

Several points of land stagnatetoday transformed into an oil palm plantation. According to the results investigation Following this, there are approximately 274 hectares in Tajepan and Sangatkau Asti villages that have been planted with oil palm due to overlapping permits from companies. Indeed, this locality has the status of Forest Zone for Food Security (KHKP).

3. Chronic smoke and catastrophic flooding

Since the clearing of forest in Tawai Baru village, Gunung Mas, Central Kalimantan, for food exploitation, flood intensity has become more frequent and higher. Before the start of the project, the flood was only 50 cm, it has now reached 1.5 m.

Apart from flooding, smoke disaster often occurs in ex-PLG Central Kalimantan. Based on data Pantau Gambut saw 91,352 hectares burned in the region last year. These lands should be a priority for peat restoration rather than conversion to plantations.

4. Planned deforestation

Not only does this damage peatlands, but the food plantation program deforestation. Under President Jokowi's administration, for example, the total reached 1,500 hectares of forest in Tewai Baru village, Gunung Mas regency. Meanwhile, in North Sumatra, 600 hectares of forest have been converted to plantations.

Meanwhile, millions of hectares Papuan forests still threatened for the food and energy development zone of Merauke Regency. The area reaches 500,000 hectares for sugar cane and bioethanol plantations, 100,000 hectares for land optimization and one million hectares for the creation of new rice fields.

In fact, deforestation projects in Indonesia for the sake of food sector It was included in the 2030 Net Sink for Forestry and Other Land Uses (FOLU). Through this document, the government has effectively legalized forest clearing permits for oil palm and sugar cane plantations that are included in the PSN. Greenpeace Research Playing with fire with deforestation found that there had been planned and unplanned deforestation projects of 4.22 million hectares from 2013 to 2030.

5. Food forests are disappearing and poverty is increasing

For two decades, food sector still entrenched in the land of Papua. However, indigenous Papuan populations are instead rewarded with hunger, poverty and confiscation of their land. food field.

Results study FIAN Indonesia declared the benefits of the project food sector only appreciated by businesses. Meanwhile, the indigenous peoples of Papua have themselves lost their living space and their sago forests. Since 2010, the report indicates food sector have done nothing to reduce the poverty rate on the land they confiscated. In fact, this massive land transfer is actually the main cause of the growing poverty and stunting problems in Papua.

According to data presented in the Indonesian Nutritional Status Survey results, the rate of stunting in Papua is 13% higher than the average rate in Indonesia. Deforestation has deprived populations of their sources of food.

6. Threat to biodiversity

Food plantations threaten biodiversity in Indonesia. The forests of Papua, for example, are home to a biodiversity of endemic flora and fauna. There are approximately 13,634 species or 68% worldwide in Papua.

Additionally, the habitat of Central Kalimantan orangutans, Sumatran tigers and Sun bears of North Sumatra threatened because of the project food field. Massive clearing of forests for food plantations will destroy ecosystems and biodiversity. This tootriggering poaching of endangered species.

7. Fantastic cash disbursement

Food and energy projects in Papua is a continuation of the project food field. Investment value Investments for this project reached $8 billion. This amount is equivalent to IDR 130,000 billion.

This project is expected to be owned by the private sector and state-owned enterprises. PT Sinergi Gula Nusantara and Wilmar Group also joined us. They plan to build five sugar factories, sugar cane and bioethanol production fields, gardens and a power plant. To support the operation of the project, they of course also built access roads, ports and dams. (***)

As land conflicts continue to spread, will land reform fail?

*Sidney Alvionita Saputra is a journalist currently studying environmental infrastructure engineering at Gadjah Mada University. She writes on environmental and women's issues, focusing on environmental impact and gender justice.