Indonesian Agriculture Minister to Open Up 10.000 Hectares of Land Annually

Tempo Interactive 17 Feb 10;

TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta:Agriculture Minister Suswono said his office plans to open 50.000 hectares of new land per year within the next five years. He was optimistic that the program can be realized because the National Land Agency (BPN) had announced that 7,3 million hectares of land were neglected.

“These lands can be utilized for agriculture,” Suswono said in the 2010 – 2014 Agricultural Development Program seminar at the Agriculture Ministry on Tuesday (16/2). The utilization of these lands, he continued, is expected to increase the welfare of farmers.

At present, the average land ownership by Indonesian farmers is 0,3 hectare per capita. According to Suswono, this cannot be expected to support their livelihoods. “Land ownership families must be increased,” he said.

At the same occasion, the Agriculture Ministry’s secretary-general, Hasanudin Ibrahim, said there were 191 million hectares of agricultural land in Indonesia. "This is larger than Brazil and Australia," he said. However, the problem is that Indonesia has a much bigger population.

As a consequence, land ownership is smaller. “In Brazil, a farmer normally has up to five hectares of lands,” Hasanudin said. “That is why farmers there are relatively more prosperous than ours.”

PINGIT ARIA MUTIARA