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)