Plantation bill attracts sharp criticism from farmers, NGOs
Plantation bill attracts sharp criticism from farmers, NGOs
Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
A controversial plantation bill has come under fire from non-
governmental organizations (NGOs) and farmer associations, which
say that if passed the bill would harm both the people and the
environment.
The RACA Institute, in cooperation with a number of farmer
organizations and NGOs in North Sumatra, the Working Group of
National Independent Farmers and the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute,
has published a book to campaign against the bill.
"We cannot accept the plantation bill," Ivan Valentina Ageng,
a senior official at the RACA Institute, told The Jakarta Post on
Friday.
Ivan said the bill would just benefit large-scale plantation
firms. "The bill allows plantation companies to occupy land and
convert forest areas into monoculture plantations without any
limits, as long it is seen as not going against national
interests."
The bill also allows plantation companies to take out
concessions of up to 30 years.
"Plantation companies would not be land users but practically
owners if they were given the right to use the land for 30
years," Ivan said.
He said another problem with the bill was that it encouraged
farmer to share their land with plantation companies.
"The bill wants to kill off the low-income farmers," he said.
The bill also opens the possibility of monopolies, as it would
allow plantation companies to run the business from the upstream
to the downstream, he said.
Ivan said RACA opposed the bill because it encouraged the
authorities to give concessions to plantation companies to
convert forest areas into plantations, continuing the
exploitation of the country's forests and farmers' dependence on
capital owners.
"The bill is a threat to forests across the country," he said,
pointing out that the bill did not require plantation owners to
finance reforestation programs.
He said it would better for the government to review all of
the regulations and laws related to agrarian and natural
resources, rather than to create a new plantation law.
A number of NGOs and other organizations have actively
campaigned against different bills that would give large
companies a greater role in business.
The plantation bill and another bill on water resources were
drafted by the House of Representatives.
Meanwhile, I Made Urip, a member of House Commission III for
plantations, agriculture and fisheries said his commission would
continue reading the bill despite the criticism of the NGOs.
"We are trying to regulate the plantation business and allow
the fair participation of large and small private companies and
state-owned enterprises," he said.
He said, for example, that the bill obliged large firms to
allocate a small portion of their land to small-scale farmers.
Large companies will also have to implement community
development programs to help local people run their own
businesses, he said.
The legislator said the House would send the plantation bill
to the government immediately so they could both begin
deliberating the bill during the next session.