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Indonesia turns to Australian sugarcane to boost sugar, bioethanol production
The government wants to make Indonesia, currently one of the world’s top sugar importers, self-sufficient in sugar and bioethanol production by 2027.
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Field workers harvest sugarcane to have it ready for crushing in Purwosekar village in Malang, East Java, in this photo from 2016. (JP/Aman Rochman)
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ndonesia will use sugarcane seedlings from Australia to achieve self-sufficiency in sugar production and support the government’s bioethanol plans, a cabinet minister has said.
“The Indonesian Quarantine Agency has tested sugarcane seedlings coming directly from Australia,” Investment Minister Bahlil Lahadalia, who heads the task force for accelerating sugar and bioethanol self-sufficiency, said in a statement on Thursday.
The government wants to make Indonesia, currently one of the world’s top sugar importers, self-sufficient in sugar and bioethanol production by 2027.
Read also: Bahlil leads task force to boost sugar, bioethanol production in Papua
It had identified some 2 million hectares of land in the South Papua regency of Merauke to be used for a sugar and bioethanol development complex, Bahlil said.
The sugarcane plantations are to use modern machinery and the factories will be designed for large-scale production, according to the minister.
The land earmarked for the project is divided into plots located in four clusters, with clusters 1 and 2 covering around a million ha of land and cluster 4 covering some 400,000 ha.
