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Govt to build irrigation systems on 2 million hectares across nation
The Agriculture Ministry and the Public Works Ministry have identified around 2 million hectares of land that will be irrigated for the food self-sufficiency program.
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Dry nutrients: A farmer applies dry fertilizer on a paddy field in Sawit, Boyolali, Central Java, on March 1, 2024.
(Antara/Aloysius Jarot Nugroho)
T
he Agriculture Ministry and the Public Works Ministry have identified around 2 million hectares of land that will be irrigated to support the food self-sufficiency program.
President Prabowo Subianto has tasked his aides with achieving the country’s food self-sufficiency goal in 2027, a year earlier than the initial target of 2028.
The call to expedite the food self-sufficiency drive comes as the country struggles to maintain food production, partly due to unfavorable weather patterns in recent years, which has hampered nationwide rice output.
“So, 2 million ha of land have been identified [for building the] tertiary, primary and secondary irrigation. There are also 400,000 to 500,000 ha from the Indonesian Military [TNI] for pumps, etc.,” Agriculture Minister Andi Amran Sulaiman said in a press conference in Jakarta on Monday, as reported by kompas.com.
The minister said the development of irrigation infrastructure would be focused on Java as the island accounted for around 50 to 60 percent of national food production.
Read also: Govt speeds up food self-sufficiency target to 2027
“In Java, we will focus on upland and irrigation normalization, because this area is the backbone of national production. Outside Java, we are focusing on optimizing [production in] swamp [areas],” he explained, as reported by CNBC Indonesia.
