T

he Indonesian Army will deploy its personnel to assist the agriculture sector to achieve food sufficiency within three years.

'€œPresident Joko [Jokowi] Widodo has ordered us to work hand in hand with the Agriculture Ministry for this goal,'€ Army chief Gen. Gatot Nurmantyo told reporters during an Army executive meeting on Thursday in Jakarta.

Gatot said food sufficiency was very important to the country and strengthened national resilience. It was part of the military'€™s non-combatant duty to speed up the program.

'€œWe are optimistic that we can reach our goal, and even export our rice overseas in the future,'€ he said.

During the executive meeting on Thursday, the Army and the Agriculture Ministry signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on agriculture cooperation. The MoU will allow the military from regional commands throughout the country to give assistance to the local government and respective agriculture agencies.

Agriculture Minister Amran Sulaiman said that the Army would deploy 50,000 of its personnel, and that another 50,000 village supervisory non-commissioned officers (Babinsa) would be also involved. These military personnel would be agriculture field advisors, as the ministry was still short of 70,000 advisors.

'€œThe additional advisors from the military will help us and it will address one problem faced by the agriculture sector,'€ Amran said, adding that they faced five obstacles; damaged irrigation infrastructure, a lack of seeds, fertilizer, farmers and advisors.

Amran also said that 52 percent of the irrigation infrastructure was in poor condition. The Army'€™s assistance would be very important to help fix this.

The Agriculture Ministry will allocate Rp 16.9 trillion (US$1.3 billion) from its budget, taken from the fuel subsidy budget, for the food sufficiency program.

The involvement of military personnel in agriculture has taken place in Bone, South Sulawesi, where Babinsa work as advisors in the area to help farmers. Amran said production in the area had increased under Babinsa'€™s supervision.

Besides establishing cooperation with the Agriculture Ministry, the Army was also assisting the Public Works Ministry to construct a 300-kilometer road along the border of Kalimantan and Malaysia and developing 100 villages.

Previously, TNI chief Gen. Moeldoko revealed the military'€™s plan to expand its community services (TMMD), to neglected areas such as former conflict zones, border areas, remote villages and among the urban poor.

He said that military had been successful in developing many villages in Indonesia and, until 2014, had developed 5,679 villages.