The development of irrigation infrastructure would be focused on Java as the island accounted for around 50% to 60% of national food production. — The Jakarta Post
JAKARTA: The Agriculture Ministry and the Public Works Ministry have identified around two million hectares of land that will be irrigated to support Indonesia’s food self-sufficiency programme.
President Prabowo Subianto has tasked his aides with achieving the country’s food self-sufficiency goal in 2027, a year earlier than the initial target of 2028.
The call to expedite the food self-sufficiency drive comes as the country struggles to maintain food production, partly due to unfavourable weather patterns in recent years, which has hampered nationwide rice output.
“So, two million hectares of land have been identified for building the tertiary, primary and secondary irrigation. There are also 400,000ha to 500,000ha from the Indonesian Military for pumps, and so on,” Agriculture Minister Andi Amran Sulaiman said in a press conference in Jakarta.
The minister said the development of irrigation infrastructure would be focused on Java as the island accounted for around 50% to 60% of national food production.
“In Java, we will focus on upland and irrigation normalisation, because this area is the backbone of national production. Outside Java, we are focusing on optimising production in swamp areas,” he added.
Previously, Amran had said that all “problematic irrigation systems” would be fixed in 2025.
“We will fix all tertiary, primary and secondary irrigation systems that are still problematic in 2025. The budget allocated to that purpose is 12 trillion rupiah or about US$739.6mil, in collaboration with the Public Works Ministry,” Amran said in a written statement.
The government would finalise a presidential instruction on irrigation “no later than early January” to accelerate irrigation development, Amran vowed.
He went on to say that the rules were designed to clarify the division of responsibility between the central, provincial and district governments in handling irrigation.
“The centre, province and districts can work together in the same location, depending on their respective budgets. For example, the district handles irrigation of areas below 1,000ha, the province for 1,000ha to 3,000ha and the centre handles irrigation over 3,000ha,” he explained.
“Those who have the budget can work together in one place; the important thing is that there is no overlap in efforts,” he added.
Public Works Minister Dody Hanggodo said a draft of the presidential instruction had gone through a verification and coordination process with the regional government to ensure there would be no overlapping regulations.
“God willing, everything will run smoothly,” he said.
National rice production is expected to fall by 760,000 tonnes to 30.34 million tonnes this year, according to Statistics Indonesia estimates.
Last year, the country saw an estimated drop of 650,000 tonnes in output.
The government has authorised the State Logistics Agency to import 3.6 million tonnes of rice this year amid the risk of declining domestic output, with a total of 2.8 million tonnes having already entered the country as of November.
Last year, the country purchased more than three million tonnes of rice from overseas. — The Jakarta Post/ANN
