Land rehabilitation in Rawa Belanti, Central Kalimantan (Source: https://kalteng.antaranews.com/)Jakarta (VNA) – Indonesian President Joko Widodo has directed the Ministryof Public Works and Housing (PUPR) to expand the country’s agricultural landprogramme through a project to optimise 165,000 hectares of rice fields inPulang Pisau district in Central Kalimantan on Borneo island.
PUPR Minister Basuki Hadimulyono said that85,500 hectares of land in this region are being used for agricultural purposesand an additional 79,500 hectares need to be reclaimed with the aim of raisingthe rice productivity to 2 tonnes per hectare.
The project will be carried out in 2020 andlast until 2022. It aims to optimise alluvial land, not peatland in theGovernment’s Peatland Development Project (PLG).
Data announced on April 28 showed that 20out of the 34 provinces and cities of Indonesia were facing a lack of food,thus making food security one of the Government’s top priorities.
General Secretary of the Consortium forAgrarian Reform (KPA) Dewi Kartika attributed the Government’s agriculturalreform programme to the lack of food as agricultural land has been graduallycut to mining projects and industrial tree plantations.
She cited the National Land Agency’sstatistics as saying that 650,000 hectares of agrarian land were lost in 2018./.
VNA
