TPN Ensures Ganjar-Mahfud Will Change Food Estate Mechanism

TPN Executive Secretary Ganjar Mahfud, Heru Dewanto with Rieke Diah Pitaloka/PHOTO: Abdul Aziz Masindo-VOI

JAKARTA - The Ganjar-Mahfud National Winning Team (TPN) said candidate pair number 3 would continue the Jokowi administration's food estate program. But the mechanism is changed.

"Conceptually, food estate does not mean we don't agree, our food estate agrees. However, the food estate that now has to be admitted needs to be criticized. If we criticize something, it doesn't mean we are against what has been done," said TPN Executive Secretary Heru Dewanto, Monday, January 21.

Heru explained that the food estate offered by Ganjar-Mahfud is to empower farmers by uniting a group of farmers whose land is small to reach a certain economic scale.

"The mission is to empower farmers, who were previously farmer workers to become farmer entrepreneurs, because that is why a group of farmers whose land is small we integrate together to reach a certain economic scale so that corporatization can be carried out," he said.

Heru also said that the scope of the food estate would be reduced, not nationally scaled. Ganjar-Mahfud is said to be seeing potentials in the regions.

That way the ecosystem is not only built in agriculture, but its derivatives include the livestock sector which then goes to industry.