Peat land project facing irrigation problems

JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Public Works Radinal Moochtar disclosed that the one-million-hectare agricultural megaproject in Central Kalimantan is facing irrigation problems.

Radinal said in the provincial capital Palangka Raya that an adequate irrigation system is difficult to build because the land surface in some places is very high, making the construction of irrigation dams not only technically complicated but also expensive.

"The places which are too high to irrigate are not that large in size and we're going to solve the problem step by step," Radinal was quoted by Antara as saying Thursday during his visit to the project with several other cabinet ministers.

The government is considering earmarking the high lands for non-agricultural projects, such as residential complexes for farmers, Radinal said.

There are three major rivers that cross the project area, namely the Kapuas, Barito and Kahayan.

The megaproject, launched in February, involves converting one million hectares of peat land in the Kapuas regency into 638,000 hectares of rice fields. The remaining 362,000 hectares are to be used for horticulture, plantations, conservation areas, housing and reservoirs.

Converting the peat moss area into agricultural land is meant to compensate for the shrinking agricultural areas in Java caused by the rapid development of housing complexes, industrial areas and highways over the past 10 years.

The one-million-hectare peat moss project has been dubbed the most expensive development project this year; its cost is estimated at about Rp 5 billion (US$2.1 million). To convert a hectare of peat land into agricultural land costs about Rp 5 million.

The government has already spent some Rp 527.2 billion building the required infrastructure.

Minister of Transmigration Siswono Yudohusodo told reporters after meeting with President Soeharto at Merdeka Palace yesterday that the project is intended for poor farmers.

Local people already moved to the general area from Java under the state-sponsored transmigration program are not eligible to own land in the project area if they are already better off than they were previously, Siswono said.

He told the local administration to select the prospective resettlers of the megaproject carefully.

Siswono said that of the 316,000 families who will be resettled in the project area, the first 50 will arrive next week. By March 1997, a total of 3,000 families will be farming in the project area, he said.

"Among the 3,000 families, 60 percent of them are native people," Siswono said.

Meanwhile, State Minister of National Development Planning and Chairman of the National Development Planning Board (Bappenas) Ginandjar Kartasasmita said that the local natives will have priority to benefit from the project.

"We will make sure that natives benefit from the project before outsiders are brought in," Ginandjar said in Palangka Raya.

Ginandjar acknowledged that the placement of farmers in the project area has lagged behind the infrastructure's development. (ste)