The government is ramping up sugar production and working to attract more investment in the industry to prevent a shortage of the commodity and price hikes in 2021 as the country seeks to recover from the pandemic downturn. The Agriculture Ministry is preparing to work on intensification of 200,000 hectares of land on Java island with state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and [land expansion] of 50,000 ha of land outside Java with private businesses for sugarcane plantations. The aim is to raise sugar production by around 676,000 tons by 2023 and make Indonesia less reliant on imports. “It will not be enough with the limited land on Java. So we need to prepare extensification outside Java, especially on the remaining available lands that are quite large,” said Agriculture Minister Syahrul Yasin Limpo during the National Sugar Summit on Tuesday. Early this year, short supply...