Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
cure domestic food production and ensure food security for the nation. Ac-
cording to the Department of Agriculture, 'Merauke will not only become the
national food bowl, but it will also be capable of feeding the world' (Deptan,
2010). Despite the oicial launh of the project, there are still considerable con-
cerns over the practical future of the project, not least from anxious investors
concerned over long-term tenure arrangements in Papua.
Not surprisingly, opposition to the Merauke plan has been overwhelming.
Many NGO (non-governmental organization) observers consider the project to
be nothing less than a thinly-veiled resource grab by domestic and interna-
tional investors, a view not helped by the list of companies associated with
the plan, including oil palm giants suh as PT Medco, PT Bangun Cipta and
PT Wilmar (Setneg, 2010). Serious questions have arisen regarding the envir-
onmental and carbon implications of the project, with a leading Jakarta-based
environmental NGO, Greenomics, using satellite imagery, combined with data
from the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Forestry, to estimate
that no more than 500,000 hectares of suitable land (unforested scrubland clas-
sified as production forest) actually exists in the district. The implication is that
MIFEE inevitably requires extensive land clearing (with the resulting release
of substantial terrestrial carbon stoks). Moreover, Indonesian environmental
NGOs suh as WALHI predict a worsening local situation of food insecurity as
a result of MIFEE as traditional resource access rights, including those allow-
ing for sago production, are denied as a result of the project (Rakyat Merdeka,
2010). With ethnic tensions already severely strained in the province amidst
heightening calls for a moratorium on further in-migration from other parts of
Indonesia, it is highly ironic that the rhetoric of national food security is being
invoked to justify actions likely to further marginalize traditional communities
living in this critically food-insecure province.
The case of MIFEE suggests that the single-minded policy aim of ensuring
food availability at the national level, and ignoring drivers of food insecurity
at the household level, may have disastrous consequences.
