This is the DPR's Strategy to Address Agrarian Conflicts Involving Workers

Jakarta – Deputy Speaker of the Indonesian House of Representatives (DPR RI) Sufmi Dasco Ahmad has acknowledged that the handling of agrarian issues, including conflicts in forest areas, is still progressing slowly. The DPR plans to establish a new mechanism to ensure that responses to cases in the field are no longer delayed. Dasco made this statement in response to various complaints from workers and the public regarding land conflicts that also involve farmers and fishermen. He assessed that issues occurring in the field often go undetected from the outset due to minimal coordination among parties, including the forest area enforcement task force. “The forest area enforcement task force has not yet been informed about the matters mentioned earlier, that within the area there are, for example, farmers, settlements, and workers who currently live there,” Dasco said during an audience with representatives of worker masses at the DPR Building, Senayan, Central Jakarta, on Friday, 1 May 2026. According to him, the task force only carries out enforcement functions without fully understanding the social conditions in the field. Therefore, the DPR will push for improvements in communication and the division of authorities. “So this is just a matter of communication and authority that we need to clarify,” he stated. Dasco also acknowledged that the performance of the Special Committee (Pansus) on agrarian reform has not been optimal so far. The ongoing process is deemed slow because it is still focused on data synchronisation. “We acknowledge that the Pansus is progressing somewhat slowly because it is still carrying out synchronisations,” he said. As an improvement step, the DPR will form a command centre involving cross-commissions, including Commission III, so that every report from the field can be directly responded to. “If we do not receive information like yesterday, we did not know that an incident had occurred in the field, there might have been arrests, or issues between companies and farmers,” he said. With this new system, the DPR hopes that every conflict can be quickly mitigated before it escalates. “If we receive the information, our response will also be quick so that necessary mitigations can be carried out,” Dasco stated. In addition, the DPR will also revisit the 3 million housing development programme to target workers as beneficiaries.