Becoming the capital of Indonesia, East Kalimantan to ensure the food resilience by designing self-sufficiency programs

SAMARINDA, Indonesia, Nov. 14, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- President of Republic of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, in August, has announced that the country's capital city will be moved from Jakarta to East Kalimantan province. In addition to the massive infrastructure readiness, the would-be country's capital has to be fully prepared to ensure the food resilience. Therefore, the provincial government of East Kalimantan has designed a number of self-sufficiency programs.

According to Food Crops and Horticulture Services of East Kalimantan, the province's total agricultural area is 9.972.777 ha, consisting of rice field (93.045 ha) and non-rice field plantation area (9.879.730 ha).

"The rice field can produce up to 288.353 tons of rice or 87,80% of the country's annual rice needs which is currently 328.423 tons. It means, there's still lack of 40.070 tons of rice or 12,20%," expounded the caretaker of Head of Food Crops and Horticulture Services of East Kalimantan, Uni Gamayanti.

To close the gap, the provincial government of East Kalimantan has designed a number of self-sufficiency programs, one of which is through the Special Effort (Upsus) of production enhancement of rice, maize, and soy bean, as well as provision of pre- and post-harvest agriculture machinery and the pest control solutions.

"In 2018/19, the province's maize production rocketed from 56.597 tons to 103.103 tons. As with the maize, rice production has also shown a significant improvement; 400.102 tons in 2017, went up to 459.600 tons in 2018," she added.

The previous Agriculture Minister, Amran Sulaiman, has particularly designed a strategy to establish  the province's food resilience. He divided a number of province's cities/regions into clusters. Each cluster has its specialty; rice fields, cattle and poultry farms, shallots and garlic, and so on.  This way, East Kalimantan is projected to be able to fulfill the province's food supply.

In the other hand, the provincial government actively pursues the private investments to optimize the province's development.

Representative of Investment Center of East Kalimantan, Riawati, stated that, in an effort to encourage investments, the government offers various attractive incentives to investors, such as tax holidays, tax allowances, loan interest subsidies, to name a few.

"All these incentives, along with its nature's economical potential, East Kalimantan is the ideal investment destination in Indonesia," She remarked.