Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment, Luhut B. Pandjaitan, says Indonesia aims to collaborate with China in developing the production of five essential food items − rice, curly chili, garlic, durian, and seaweed − this year.
Luhut revealed the plan following his meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Monday, April 22, 2024, while emphasizing that the first food item to be developed would be rice.
“I have informed the president that we have requested China to provide us with their rice production technology because they have been very successful in achieving self-sufficiency,” Luhut said in his social media account as quoted on Tuesday, April 23, 2024.
Statistical data shows China’s rice consumption for 2023/2024 was nearly 150 million tons. Meanwhile, according to the US government, rice production volume in China for 2023/2024 reached 206.6 million tons with a productivity rate of 7.1 tons per hectare.
Luhut said that the Chinese government has agreed to share its rice production technology with Indonesia. The government plans to implement this technology in the Food Estate project in Central Kalimantan.
The Food Estate in Central Kalimantan province covered approximately 60,000 hectares last year. However, the government intends to apply Chinese production technology on an expanded area of 100,000 hectares in the province.
The government aims to designate the State Logistics Agency (Bulog) as the institution responsible for absorbing all harvests in that area. The implementation of this plan is expected to commence within the next six months or around the last quarter of this year.
Luhut targets that this project will increase rice production from Central Kalimantan to 2 million tons per planting season. He believes that Indonesia can become the world’s food granary if this target is achieved.
In addition to rice, the government plans to develop the production of curly chili and garlic in the Humbang Hasundutan Food Estate in North Sumatra. Luhut claims that the progress of the Humbang Hasundutan Food Estate project has been good, but he is not yet satisfied with its development.
Therefore, Luhut intends to combine the results of research on curly chili and garlic from China with local researchers to develop these two commodities in the Humbang Hasundutan Food Estate. Luhut emphasizes that this collaboration must involve local companies.
The third commodity to be developed is durian. Luhut said that the development of this commodity is essential to seize a share of China’s billion dollars annual durian import market. He aims for domestic durian development to generate around US$ 600 million from the Chinese durian market.
Luhut has set out to develop durian in Central Sulawesi and North Sumatra. He targets durian development in Central Sulawesi to produce exports worth US$ 500 million and around US$ 100 million in North Sumatra.
Furthermore, he has explored cooperation in seaweed cultivation with China domestically. Luhut mentioned that the potential area for seaweed cultivation in Indonesia is approximately 2.5 million hectares.
He deems this favorable as 60 percent of the Indonesian population resides in coastal areas. Consequently, Luhut believes that this project can establish Indonesia as the world’s largest seaweed producer.
“I informed Wang Yi last night [April 22] to start with 100,000 hectares. This can accelerate the process of our technical team, which has been working on this for almost a year,” he added.
