TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search resultsIndonesia told to use Malaysian agrarian reform as model
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
Activists, students and farmer representatives call on the government to implement its land reform program during a rally in Mataram, West Nusa Tenggara. (JP/Panca Nugraha)
I
ndonesia is being advised to take agrarian reform in Malaysia as a model for the ongoing land reform in the country, in which the government is distributing plots of land to small-time farmers.
The establishment of farmer groups was the prerequisite to the success of the agrarian reforms undertaken by the Federal Land Development Authority (Felda) in Malaysia, said a researcher with the Institute for Development of Economics and Finance (Indef), Bhima Yudhistira Adhinegara, on Thursday.
Groups with 10 to 15 members enable the government to empower farmers by providing them with guidance or technical assistance, he added.
"Farmers must be empowered so that the program will not end with the land distribution. It is useless if plots of land have been distributed to farmers, but they are not empowered and given guidance," Bhima said as reported by Antara news.
With farmers working in groups, it will be easier for the government to carry out supervision and ensure that land remains productive and the ownership remains unchanged, he stressed.
Indonesia has started an ambitious land reform program this year by, among other things, distributing land to farmers across the country.
President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has required the Agrarian and Spatial Planning Ministry to issue 5 million land certificates this year and 7.5 million in 2018 to try to accelerate the government’s effort to reduce a disparity between the rich and the poor. (bbn)
