Minister Of Transportation Guarantees No Forest Deforestation, Government Implements Tumpang Sari Pattern

Minister Of Transportation King Juli Antoni/PHOTO: Dafi-VOI

JAKARTA - Minister of Forestry (Menhut) Raja Juli Antoni straightened out the issue of the government wanting to deforestation the forest, converting 20.6 million hectares into food and energy land.

Raja Juli menjelaskan yang pemerintah lakukan adalah pola overlapra sehingga tidak mempertimbangkan hutan justru mengoptimaliskan fungsi hutan.

"So the idea is that in 20.6 million hectares, it remains a forest area, not a forest area, it is not damaged, not deforestation but maximizing the function of the forest," he said, Thursday, January 16.

He said about planting on an overlapping basis.

"This is by agrophorestrial means or overlapping in essence, so it is permissible to plant the teak of planting the sengon, but underneath it is planted with gogo rice or corn," he said.

The Minister of Forestry explained that initially there were nomenclatures that regulate food and water reserve forests, after being identified there were around 20.6 million hectares of land that could be maximized by planting food and energy plants.

Based on this, the government wants to encourage the achievement of food self-sufficiency, for example if an overlapping pattern is carried out for rice planting in 1 million hectares of land, it will produce 3.5 million tons of rice equivalent to Indonesia's imports.

"Yesterday it was calculated with the Minister of Agriculture if our rice imports in 2023 were 3.5 million tons, if we plant it by overlapping the juice in forest areas, 1 hectare can produce 3.5 tons of rice with the latest seeds from Unsoed, meaning we don't need to import anymore," he said.

Raja Juli mengatakan dengan pola ini maka Indonesia dapat mencapai swasembada pangan dengan tetap menjaga hutan dan meminimalisasi deforestasi.

"Don't be wrong anymore, we don't open forests, so this is a forest that already exists, we plant dense trees, below which food plants are planted that benefit the people, logically, the food reserve forest actually minimizes deforestation," he said.

Raja Juli mengatakan 20,6 juta hektare hutan ini tersebar di seluruh Indonesia, di mana bersama Kementerian Agricultural mereka akan mulai menanam di 50 hektare lahan pada 22 Januari 2025.