Planting rice in Irian?

Planting rice in Irian?

From Republika

I have been wondering how the Indonesian Science Institute
(LIPI) could have come up with the "brilliant idea" of teaching
the Irian Jaya population to plant rice, as reported by one of
Jakarta's newspapers. This is really disheartening. The project
does not make any sense and needs to be questioned on its basis
of argumentation and its scale of priority.

If the plan is a serious LIPI project, it is even more
confounding. As an Indonesian, I feel really sated with the
slogans stating the necessity for food diversification efforts so
that we do not depend only on rice as our staple food. Why do the
Irianese, whose staple food is sago palm, have to be instructed
to eat rice? I fear that the cultivation of rice is to meet the
need of migrant settlers or the demand of rice in Java due to its
limited land area for rice growing.

If so, what is in it for the Irianese population?

The opening of new palm oil plantations in Arso district and
Jayapura's east coast, respectively on 70,000 and 166,300
hectares, also leaves me aghast.

Why do sago palm forests have to be sacrificed for business
tycoons (some of them foreigners to boot), if later on there will
be a bizarre policy forcing the inhabitants to eat rice?

ARIEF PAMBUDI

Jakarta