IPB Professor: Benahi Before Agricultural Fields Before The Form Of The Food Estate Special Committee

Illustration. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - Observer and Professor of the Bogor Agricultural University, Dwi Andreas Santosa, assessed that the DPR's discourse to form a special committee (pansus) food estate was not needed because it should focus on improving agricultural land first.

He said the food estate had started since 1996, but until now it has not produced results as expected due to the lack of large-scale agricultural land development.

The first sickle is the suitability of the soil and agro climate. I observed that some of these pillar food estate programs have been violated, the land is not suitable, agro climate is not suitable for certain commodities, it is certainly a failure," he said, quoted from Antara, Tuesday, January 17.

Then the second pillar of developing agricultural land is the feasibility of irrigation infrastructure and farm business roads. If irrigation is not built properly due to a number of factors such as limited funds, agricultural products will certainly fail.

"When water can't be managed, it can't be successful. There are still farming business roads for input and output transportation in the local area," he said.

Furthermore, the Government, including the DPR, which functions as a supervisory agency, must pay attention to the aspects of cultivation and technology in the development of food estates. The level of suitability of varieties and variety availability as well as the provision of technology must not be missed in building a food estate.

"Say that the third second pillar is fulfilled, there are still the fourth pillar. The fourth pillar is social and economic that is very equal in developing Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate (MIFEE) and Merauke Integrated Rice Estate (Mire)," he said.

The issue of labor, he continued, is also a problem in developing food estates. He gave an example, on Meraku, 1.2 million hectares of agricultural land will be developed with a workforce requirement of at least 600 thousand farmers, even though the population is only 154 thousand people.

"So from the four, just one is not fulfilled, it will definitely fail, let alone until 2-3 pillars are not fulfilled. If you want a special committee, from the last 25 years," said Andreas.

At a Working Meeting with the Minister of Agriculture, Monday, January 16, the Chairman of Commission IV of the Indonesian House of Representatives, Sudin, said that the food estate was a program of the Ministry of Agriculture that failed because it did not reach the target. Not to mention that the production data submitted by the Ministry of Agriculture is not in sync with the state of rice stocks in the field.

"We Commission IV have prepared a food estate panja and even some friends have suggested that a special committee be made because there are a lot of fake data," said Sudin.