[Madani News, Jakarta, 24/02/2021] The food estate policy , or program aimed at maintaining domestic food security by opening up agricultural land on a massive scale, requires special attention to prevent the well-intentioned policy from having a negative impact, particularly on natural forests and peatlands.
Anggalia Putri, Knowledge Manager of the Madani Berkelanjutan Foundation, stated that the food estate policy will be secure if natural forests, peatlands, and indigenous communities' territories are excluded from the program's area of interest. She made this statement during a virtual public discussion on " Assessing the Impact of Food Estates on Natural Forests and Peatlands " on Wednesday, February 24, 2021.
" Almost all (92%) of the Area of Interest (AoI) of the food estate in four provinces: North Sumatra, South Sumatra, Central Kalimantan, and Papua, is located in forest areas. Land conversion resulting from the food estate will undoubtedly have a negative impact not only on the forests but also on Indonesia's climate commitments, as manifested in its National Development Planning (NDC), " Anggi said.
Present in this discussion were Professor of the Faculty of Agriculture, IPB University, Prof. Dr. Ir. Dwi Andreas Santosa, and also the Executive Director of the Center for Climate Risk and Opportunity Management in Southeast Asia and Pacific (CCROM-SEAP), IPB University, Prof. Dr. Rizaldi Boer.
Regarding the food estate plan , Dwi Andreas Santosa revealed that the history of food estate implementation in Indonesia is quite poor. Andreas attributed the failure of previous food estate initiatives implemented by the Indonesian government to their failure to adhere to academic principles.
" Academic principles that need to be considered include: first, land and agro-climate feasibility, infrastructure feasibility, technological feasibility, and social and economic feasibility. Water management is key to agricultural land development. This includes the feasibility of high-cost infrastructure. All aspects must be met, or the food estate will fail ," said Andreas.
Andreas also said that food estates do not actually solve the food problem, and it will be even worse if it is done by converting natural forests.
Meanwhile, Rizaldi Boer focused on revealing the impact of food estates on Indonesia's climate commitments in its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC).
Rizaldi Boer stated that if Madani's findings regarding food estates are correct, then they truly represent a red carpet for natural resource exploitation and are a threat. " The forestry sector accounts for up to 17% of the NDC and can only be achieved through significant reductions in deforestation and peatland restoration. Therefore, food estates truly pose a threat ," Rizaldi said.
Rizaldi also stated that achieving the NDC targets requires preserving areas with natural forests. He also argued that even preserving them would not necessarily achieve the overall NDC targets.
In Indonesia's NDC document, the target for reducing Greenhouse Gas emissions is 29% unconditionally (with own efforts) and 41% conditionally (with adequate international support) by 2030.
Get the virtual public discussion materials Measuring the Impact of Food Estates on Natural Forests and Peatlands by downloading the attachment below.
Measuring the Impact of Food Estate Policy on Natural Forests and Peatlands
Rizaldi Boer's Material
Feasibility of Food Estate Development
