Land grabbing in Indonesia
Junaidi Jasuan, Yulian
In the recent years we see the fast growing phenomena of land grabbing across the world. In Africa, Asia and Latin America million of hectares of land has been taking over by developed countries through their multinational agribusiness. In Southern Laos for example 100 million hectares of land has been taken by China telecommunication company ZTE to developed cassava plantation as the main source for ethanol, In Brazil, Japan conglomerate Mitsui has bought 100 million hectares of land to produce soy bean (Grain, 2008). In Indonesia, this phenomenon is also occurs in the recent years and it is supported by national policies. In 2008, the government issued Presidential Decree No.5/2008 on Focus of Economic Program which also includes Large Scale Investment on Food (Food Estate). The Decree is aim to gives opportunity for investors to developed food crops plantation. It becomes the foundation for the establishment of Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate (MIFEE), a large scale food plantation in Papua Island. The early concept of MIFEE is to establish an integrated land management for agriculture, where in minimum 1.000 hectares of land is divided into 70 percent of food crops, 9 percent for animal husbandry, 8 percent of fish pond, 8 percent of plantation dan 5 percent for other purposes. But the implementation shows differently , the portion of plantation is far more bigger than food crops, meanwhile there is no portion for animal husbandry and fish pond. According to Investment Coordination Body District of Merauke (BKPMD Kabupaten Merauke) the areal for food crops is only 4,2 percent from the total area, far below the plan of 70 percent. It can be seen in the table below.
Event: International Conference on Global Land Grabbing
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