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Your letters: Agriculture must be accelerated
High tech: A farmer tries out a mechanical harvester at his farm in Padarambu, East Manggarai, East Nusa Tenggara, on Oct
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High tech: A farmer tries out a mechanical harvester at his farm in Padarambu, East Manggarai, East Nusa Tenggara, on Oct. 9, 2015. The government donated a number of the machines to local farmers through the 2015 state budget to boost agricultural production in the province.(JP/Markus) (JP/Markus)
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span class="inline inline-center">High tech: A farmer tries out a mechanical harvester at his farm in Padarambu, East Manggarai, East Nusa Tenggara, on Oct. 9, 2015. The government donated a number of the machines to local farmers through the 2015 state budget to boost agricultural production in the province.(JP/Markus)
One of our current government's first strategies was the maritime development that President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo announced in Myanmar just a few weeks after his election. It may be one of the most complete and most concretely helpful and inclusive strategies that the government has ever developed, with elements of culture, sustainable resource management, economic development, sovereignty, environment and defense.
Half a year later, the President recognized that a tough and experienced person should coordinate and support all these different aspects to ensure achievements.
No wonder that together with the maritime affairs and fisheries minister, significant progress has been made and all those playing roles in the maritime and fisheries sector have even been acknowledged internationally.
All the stranger is that we don't have a similar strategy for our land management and reform, another issue that sounds equally logical and is easy to explain to the public and to all stakeholders.
Please have a look at what the US and the EU did in some of their worst moments in history, the Great Depression and World War II. They decided that their different states and countries needed to work together to manage land as best as possible, according to their skills, and they created a functional framework for interstate and international trade.
And so the US' farm bill and commerce clause were combined and the EU's first policy became the common agricultural policy as part of the common market, which is still receiving nearly 40 percent of the total budget.
Our tropical climate produces high levels of photosynthesis, making plants and trees grow much faster than in any other country. For instance, as many experts and diplomats knowledgeable in the sector will admit, the sustainable forestry and paper industry is only possible in Indonesia. The harvest time of 'long fiber wood' in the north takes between 20 to 30 years, while we can listen to our trees grow and harvest them every four to five years.
The paper industry is slowly closing down in North America and Europe and operators in the US and the EU regularly request protectionist measures from their authorities, who long ago understood that this is a dead-end road.
Indonesia could further develop a forestry and wood products industry that could be a formidable and logical ally of its people, by ensuring a careful and lasting balance between the priorities of food security, inclusive equitable economic growth and forest and peat conservation.
Indonesia needs a land and sea compass to quickly and successfully navigate toward the Sustainable Development Goals let's not waste any more time or land.
Petrus Pematang
Jakarta
