[From an oped piece in Kompas.id by the head of the Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB) Farmers and Fishers Centre Hermanu Triwidodo titled "'Food Estates', What do the Farmers Get?".]
The people who best understand the ins and outs of agriculture are the farmers themselves. Double combo. They have already been hemmed in by the impact of climate change and in addition to this are being eliminated by national food barn or food estate projects.
Food estate projects continue to be in the public spotlight. Food barns have been proven to have failed from time to time, but the government continues to pursue them.
Many factors have caused the failure of food barns, including lack of planning and research, only benefiting cronies, not involving local communities and most importantly, nullifying the important role of the main actors: farmers.
Not surprisingly, concerns expressed on National Farmers Day, which is celebrated every September 24, have fallen on deaf ears amid competing opinions on food barns.
At the end of his term of office, President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo said that the next administration wants to focus on increasing food and energy security. The statement clearly laid the groundwork for president-elect Prabowo Subianto to continue the national food barn projects.
As a first step, Widodo designated the Ministry of Defence to become a leading sector in strengthening national food reserves through food estate programs on July 9, 2020. Food estates were designated as National Strategic Projects (PSN).
These food estate projects will be worked on in a number of provinces, namely North Sumatra, Central Java, West Java, East Java, Central Kalimantan, East Nusa Tenggara, Papua and South Papua.
After nearly four years however, the food estate projects in Kalimantan, North Sumatra and East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) have been deemed to be a failure. The megaproject was redirected to Merauke regency in South Papua.
There are two food barn projects being worked on in Merauke. The two are paddy fields supported by Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto and an integrated sugar cane plantation that is being supervised directly by President Widodo.
The two food barn megaprojects cover an area of 2.29 million hectares. Out of this total, an area of 1.11 million hectares of land is being used to open an integrated sugar cane plantation, involving sugar cane plantations, sugar and bioethanol factories. While the remaining 1.18 million hectares of land is being used for irrigated rice fields.
The government claims that the food estates will realise rice self-sufficiency in 2027 and meet the country's sugar and bioethanol plant needs a year later.
Learning from the failure of MIFEE
Merauke was actually used as a food barn of the era of former President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. The Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate (MIFEE) was operated over the period 2006-2011.
Merauke was touted as an extensive commercial plantation and was part of Yudhoyono's vision to feed Indonesia and to feed the world. Over time however, the MIFEE program did not go well so it was stopped.
MIFEE failed because the project was carried out without regard to the interests and rights of indigenous Papuan people, who had lived there for centuries. They were not involved in project planning and implementation so they felt they did not have control over the land they lived on.
It was this that created conflicts between local communities and investors involved in the MIFEE project.
The failure of the MIFEE project was also caused by the unavailability of sufficient land to sustain agricultural activities. Most of the Merauke area is peatlands, which is unsuitable for rice or vegetable agriculture.
But the fact of MIFEE's failure was apparently not used a lesson for the current project. Food barns continue with centralistic policies. Government programs are forced on farmers. The Food Estate program marginalises the role of Papuan farming communities who are accustomed to planting sago.
It requires a long time for farming communities in Papua to learn how to plant of sugar cane, rice and cassava. Moreover, it is necessary to provide an understanding to the local Papuan farming community that rice fields, sugar cane plantations and cassava fields will drastically change their traditional planting culture.
It is necessary to prepare a whole generation for this. It cannot be conjured up in an instant process by people who are forced and coerced until they become used to it.
Nuances of forced cultivation
The main purpose of food estate agricultural activities does not seem to glorify or improve the welfare of farmers. When it is not for farmers, agriculture can have nuances of forced cultivation, be intimating, repressive, collusive, corrupt and damaging to the environment.
Farmers are often looked upon with distain. They are labelled as not knowing anything, having minimal knowledge and complaining a lot. Spoiled.
With the latest developments and the knowledge and technology in today's era, the negative connotations against farmers are incorrect. They are the experts, the real agricultural specialists.
[Abridged translation by James Balowski. The full article in Bahasa Indonesia can be read here: https://www.kompas.id/baca/opini/2024/10/15/food-estate-petani-dapat-apa]