North Kalimantan Says Ready To Become IKN's Food Barn

North Kalimantan Regional Secretary Suriansyah. (Photo: Screenshot of Tempo's Youtube)

JAKARTA - The Provincial Government of North Kalimantan (Kaltara) through the Regional Secretary Suriansyah expressed his readiness to support the agenda of moving the State Capital (IKN) through a commitment to food supply.

According to him, this is in line with the food estate development plan in Kaltara which is one of the regional government's priority programs.

"We have a food estate program that is in accordance with provincial and district spatial plans with an allocation of 41,143 hectares of land," he said in a webinar on Wednesday, October 13.

In his notes, rice production in Bulungan Regency reached 3.7 tons per hectare. This figure has the potential to increase to continue to approach the total production in Java which is 7 tons per hectare and the national production figure is 5.4 tons per hectare.

"This is why we are programming a food estate, because we want to continue to pursue the maximum achievement of the production target, where the demand for rice in North Kalimantan is 76,000 tons but production is only 18,000 tons," he said.

For this reason, Suriansyah hopes that a number of strategic investors will be able to encourage the agricultural sector to be more optimal considering the opportunity for development is still wide open.

“We want investors to be able to invest in North Kalimantan because the available land is very large for agriculture. This is our great potential to become a food barn for IKN," he said.

In addition to agriculture, Kaltara called Suriansyah has the ability to support food security from the provision of fishery products. He revealed that capture fisheries production in 2020 reached 25,000 tons. Then, 4,500 tons of shrimp, 13 tons of crab, and 3,000 tons of milkfish

“We are focusing on developing the fisheries sector in three districts, namely Nunukan, Tarakan and Bulungan. It still has the potential to grow in the future,” he said.

As is known, the relocation of the State Capital was conveyed by President Joko Widodo in his State of the Union address on August 16, 2019. Of the ten districts at the Regency/City level, two districts were selected as the location for the IKN area, namely North Penajam Paser and Kutai Kartanegara.