Govt to use new agricultural land this year

Govt to use new agricultural land this year

Sari P. Setiogi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government is planning to open up some 304,451 hectares of
new agricultural land this year in a bid to increase the
production of food crops like rice, corn and soybeans, said a
senior official.

"We expect to produce more food this year. Particularly with
rice, we are expecting to produce 53 to 54 million tons of the
unhusked variety, which is the equivalent of about 35 million
tons of rice," said Sutarto Alimuso, director of food plant
conservation at the Ministry of Agriculture.

He said that most of the new agricultural land was located
outside Java.

Opening up new productive land is part of a government attempt
to increase domestic food supplies to reduce dependency on
imported foods. Rice, for instance, is considered to be a
strategic commodity as it is the staple food of most of the
country's more than 210 million population.

Sutarto said that the ministry would adopt various measures to
meet the above target. These included the utilization of former
transmigration sites long abandoned by farmers and of former
paddy fields.

He explained that with a little treatment and use of
fertilizers the above types of land could be put to productive
agricultural use.

"... We are going to utilize about 17,000 hectares of this
kind of land," said Sutarto.

But he could not specify the amount of investment needed for
the program.

He added that the ministry would push farmers to plant
horticultural crops in their paddy fields to allow them to have a
better harvest.

Meanwhile, commenting on the possibility of flooding and
climate change expected to take place in the early months of the
year, he said that the government had prepared some 350,000
hectares of land to replace the function of lowland areas that
might be badly affected by the floods.

"They are located in seven provinces, including Riau, Jambi,
South Sumatra, South Kalimantan and West Kalimantan," said
Sutarto.

He also mentioned that some irrigation facilities had also
been repaired and some new ones built.

"With all these preparations, we expect that climate change or
flooding will not (seriously) affect farmers' crops this year."