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Prabowo wants farmers to prosper, like in Germany
Drawing on his own observations during a visit to Germany, Prabowo told a Kadin dialogue about the food estate program's importance in achieving food security, as well as his vision to enrich local farmers and elevate their welfare toward farmer regeneration.
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Presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto greets supporters on Jan. 9, 2024 at a campaign event in Pekanbaru, Riau. (Antara/Galih Pradipta)
Presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto has pointed to the significance of the food estate program in improving food security, saying it serves as a strategic solution to address persistent challenges in the food and agriculture sectors.
"I've been talking [about it] for years, I have printed all digital records on how many years we have to [develop] a large food estate," Prabowo said on Friday at a dialogue hosted by the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin).
He added that the decision to set up a food estate derived from the food barn program introduced in the 1970s by Ibnu Sutowo.
Ibnu was an army general and former oil and gas minister who headed the precursor to Pertamina, building the fledgling company into a state-owned gas company of international renown, according to his profile by Kompas.com. In 1974, however, then-president Soeharto launched a probe into internal corruption at Pertamina that nearly bankrupted the country, and while Ibnu became embroiled in the investigation and was eventually fired as its first president director, he was never convicted.
Prabowo sees the food estate as a means of achieving food security, because many traders followed neoliberal ideologies and preferred to buy rice from Vietnam.
He also emphasized the importance of ensuring farmers' well-being to attract the younger generation to agriculture, and spoke of the high standard of living farmers in Germany enjoyed. Citing his experience from a visit to Germany, Prabowo said the farmers there lived in big houses and drove nice cars.
"We have to help our farmers. We have to make them prosperous so [their] children want to become farmers, like in Germany," he said.
Prabowo pointed to the lack of farmer regeneration in Indonesia as a result of people witnessing the previous generations of farmers and the challenges they faced. To address this issue, the initial focus should be on promoting equitable fertilizer distribution, ensuring that all farmers received an optimal exchange rate.
