ABRI to continue safety-net projects

BANDUNG (JP): Despite having relatively little impact on the national food and unemployment crises, the Armed Forces is to continue its labor-intensive farming projects in villages in its campaign to boost national food stocks.

Army Chief of Staff Gen. Subagyo Hadisiswoyo said at the opening ceremony of a national seminar on the program here on Sunday that: "The farming projects which recruit jobless people to till unproductive land for the agribusiness industry are quite strategic (and will) ease the unemployment problem."

He said ABRI had also prepared 100,000 hectares of unproductive land in 205 villages, mostly in Java, for agribusiness development over the next three months.

"These agribusiness projects, which are based on a profit sharing scheme, are expected to absorb 17,000 jobless people and generate a Rp 50 million (US$6,450) profit."

Subagyo said that over the last three months ABRI had succeeded in developing 100 hectares of unproductive land in Java for agribusiness purposes which had brought a profit of more than Rp 54 million.

"The projects, worth Rp 57 billion, absorbed 170,000 workers, mostly newly unemployed people... Now, the workers have their own capital to farm the land."

He said that until next March, ABRI's labor-intensive agricultural projects were expected to use about 300,000 hectares of idle land and employ approximately 500,000 people.

Subagyo said that despite its relatively small contribution to the national economy, the labor-intensive agricultural projects had succeeded in helping jobless people survive the economic crisis and the prolonged drought.

"Many regions in Java, Kalimantan and East and West Nusa Tenggara, Irian Jaya and Kalimantan are facing food shortages not only because of the crisis but also because of the prolonged drought," he said, adding that many people now only ate rice once or twice a day because of harvest failures over the last two years.

He said ABRI could not expand the labor-intensive program to other regions because of funding shortages.

"ABRI has no special budget for the projects," he said, adding that they were, in the main, financed by foreign institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. (rms)