Private sector may take part in food security program

Private sector may take part in food security program

JAKARTA (JP): The government is planning to involve private
forest concessionaires in its national food security reserve
program by requiring them to allocate 25 hectares of their
concessions for "food-reserve forests" each year.

Minister of Forestry Djamaludin Suryohadikusumo said however
that the idea of involving the private sector still needs further
studies before it can be put into action.

Speaking at the opening of a panel discussion on the
development of food-reserve forests yesterday, Djamaludin said
food-reserve forests are now needed to guarantee sufficient
national food supplies.

"The national food security reserve concept, which is
stipulated in the 1993 State Policy Guidelines, requires the
people and the government to constantly have a food-reserve," he
said.

According to a joint ministerial decree signed earlier this
year by the State Minister of Food, the Minister of Forestry and
the Commander of the Armed Forces, food-reserve forests are areas
which are planted with certain types of slow-yielding food crops
that people can use as food substitutes.

These include sago, sugar palm and breadfruit trees.

Director General of Reforestation and Land Rehabilitation
Hendarsun Suryanda Sanusiputra said yesterday that the government
is planning to develop a pilot project for the food-reserve
forests in 10 provinces, covering a total area of 1,000 hectares,
or 100 hectares per province.

The project will involve five provinces for the 1995/1996
fiscal year; Lampung, East and Central Kalimantan, East Timor and
Irian Jaya. Another five provinces will be added for the
1996/1997 fiscal year; Aceh, West Sumatra, West and South
Kalimantan and Maluku.

Djamaludin said the development of the forests would cost Rp 2
million (US$870) per hectare per year.

Land conversion

The development of food-reserve forests is not the only
program the government has designed to guarantee the country's
food supplies.

Ministers have also initiated a megaproject in Central
Kalimantan which involves the conversion of more than one million
hectares of peat land into rice fields and other agricultural
land.

Director General of Forest Utilization Titus Sarijanto said
earlier this month that the million-hectare plot partly overlaps
with 12 forest concessions and one industrial timber estate.

The forest concessions have a total area of 1.2 million
hectares but only 705,880 hectares overlap with the project,
while the timber estate -- encompassing 10,000 hectares -- is
entirely within the project area.

Titus said the affected concessionaires have been informed
about the project and have agreed to release all or part of the
required land for the megaproject.

To compensate for their losses, Titus said, the timber
harvested from the concessions will be prioritized for the wood-
processing firms integrated with their owners.

Djamaludin said on Tuesday, however, that forest
concessionaires whose areas overlap with the project may only
gather timber with a diameter of 50 centimeters or more.

Logs of smaller diameter, he said, will be retained by the
government. From this amount, two-thirds will be allocated for
the local administration, while the remaining one-third will be
managed by state-owned forestry enterprises.

The small logs will be prioritized for sawmills and molding
plants.

Djamaludin said the volume of timber harvested from the
opening of the million-hectare peat land has so far reached 1.2
million to two million cubic meters. (pwn)