ABRI to continue safety-net projects

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)