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Indonesia to distribute idle forest land to farmers in August
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Coordinating Economic Minister Darmin Nasution (left) and Agrarian and Spatial Planning Minister Sofyan Djalil talk after attending a limited Cabinet meeting at the Presidential Office in Jakarta on Feb. 16. (Antara/Wahyu Putro A)
T
he government will distribute idle forest land controlled by state-owned forestry company Perhutani to farmers through a social forestry program next month.
Perhutani controls 2.4 million hectares of plantations in Java, around 17 percent of the total land on the island. The social forestry program will distribute 570,000 hectares of idle land to underprivileged people in Java.
"The government will distribute approximately 2-hectare plots to each farmer," said Economic Coordinating Minister Darmin Nasution at a discussion on land productivity improvement through the business scheme cluster in Jakarta on Tuesday.
The forest-land distribution will begin in East and Central Java.
Read also: Government has not found funds for land certificationThe program will allow farmers, who have passed the selection based on the program's requirements, to cultivate the land for 35 years, and the land will be managed in cluster schemes to improve productivity, Darmin said.
The cluster schemes would be implemented by ensuring each village in the country had a superior product, he added.
The social forestry program is part of the government’s efforts to improve the welfare of the people in the lowest 40 percent wealth bracket. (rdi/bbn)
