The government is set to draft a new regulation that will allow the country to turn rice fields into land suited for additional housing developments.
Two senior officials are set to lead the initiative, namely Agrarian and Spatial Planning Minister Nusron Wahid and Coordinating Infrastructure and Regional Development Minister Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono (AHY).
“We will propose the name 'National Sustainable Food Agricultural Land' [LP2B]," said Nusron on Thursday during the national meeting of Real Estate Indonesia (REI) in Bandung, as reported by Kompas.
The plan comes as the country is estimated to lose over 100,000 hectares (ha) of rice fields each year due to land conversion. Meanwhile, the country has projected it could only create 60,000 ha of new rice fields annually, according to Kompas.
This year, Statistics Indonesia estimates that the country has 10.05 million ha of rice fields, which already marks a decline from previous years. The agency estimates rice production to hover at 30.34 million tonnes this year, a decline of 760,000 tonnes from last year.
Meanwhile, President Prabowo Subianto has vowed to make the country self-sufficient in rice production by the end of 2027, with the hope that similar aims could be achieved in other food commodities which still rely on imports.
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