Boediono also said the government would focus on food security to stabilize food prices for Indonesians, particularly the poor who are deeply affected by the rise in staple food prices, a Kadin official said after a meeting with Boediono on Thursday.

“There is a message from the Vice President for us to closely look at spatial planning from the perspective of national interests,” Fransiscus Welirang, Kadin’s chairman of the permanent committee on food security, said at the vice president’s office.

“There was also a discussion on food security... We were asked to deliver our thoughts on en-
suring domestic price stability,” he added.

The government will focus on 10 strategic and key commodities as part of its 2009-2014 road map on food development, as delivered at the “Feed the World” seminar last week organized by the Kadin, which was attended by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

Yudhoyono said Indonesia should maintain self-sufficiency in rice and corn production while achieving self-sufficiency in sugar production and reducing dependency on imported soybeans. Rice is the
main staple food for 231 million Indonesians.

According to research from the Agriculture Ministry, Indonesia has 190 million hectares of land, 101 million hectares of which are suitable for agricultural use without creating a negative environmental impact.

Currently, 64 million hectares are used for farming, the report says.

Rudyan Kopot, Kadin’s chairman of the permanent committee on the aquaculture industry, said there were regulations that needed to be reviewed to allow land use for agriculture.

The regulations he cited included the 1999 Forestry Law, the 2007 Spatial Planning Law and the 2007 Regional Administrations Law.

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