Tunggadewa Mattangkilang, Samarinda, East Kalimantan – Land issues and mine permits are threatening to scuttle a government plan to turn East Kalimantan into a center for national food production, the regional government has warned.
East Kalimantan Governor Awang Farouk Ishak, who last year said his province had 280,000 hectares of land ready for a food estate, now says overlapping land titles and mining permits could jeopardize the plan.
"This will of course become a hindrance," Awang said. "Let's say we want to plant a certain commodity, but after it is checked, it turns out a mining permit has already been issued for the land."
He said that many of the overlapping land claims and mining permit areas were in the same municipality and four districts as most of the 280,000 hectares of land designated for the food estate: Kutai Kartanegara, East and West Kutai and Samarinda.
"The district head and mayors should have known about this and should have immediately settled the problem so that this does not hinder the development that has been planned," Awang said.
He added that there were already 14 other firms ready to work with the provincial government to build the food estate. He cited Miwon, Solaria, Bosowa, and Trans Corp. among them.
"We are asking that these overlapping land claims be settled soon so that this program can proceed smoothly and food resilience nationally can be reached," Awang said.
The national food estate program was launched by Agriculture Minister Suswono in East Kalimantan's Bulungan district in October. The government has earmarked Rp 9 trillion ($981 million) in 2012 for the project to plant various staple crops such as rice, corn and soy.
In December, State Enterprises Minister Dahlan Iskan said three state companies would team up to open 100,000 new hectares for rice fields in East Kalimantan, in a bid to achieve the government's target of a 10 million-ton rice surplus by 2014.
Dahlan named the three companies as fertilizer maker Pupuk Sriwidjaja (Pusri) and state farming companies Pertani and Sang Hyang Seri. The new rice fields, he added, were expected to contribute one million tons of dry unhusked rice in 2013.
Dahlan later said that should East Kalimantan prove unable or not ready to host the food estate, other regions would be considered. "East Kalimantan is preparing now. But if it turns out East Kalimantan is not ready, we can move on to other parts," Dahlan said in January.
The minister said the government had designated the provinces of East Kalimantan and Papua to become centers of Indonesia's food production.