Facing an impending food crisis in the face of the Covid-19 outbreak, President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's administration is mulling over a plan to embark on a new food estate project that would clear 900,000 hectares of land in Central Kalimantan and convert them into giant rice fields. The plan is eerily reminiscent of President Soeharto's one-million-hectare Mega Rice Project (MRP) under his New Or
der regime, a project that Dayak communities, activists and environmental experts deem a total failure. While the intention might sound noble at the outset, we know that large-scale land acquisitions done under the rhetoric of economic development have almost always been counterproductive. They have led to elite capture – a form of corruption where public resources are used to benefit the elite, exacerbated ecological and socio-economic problems for local communities and caused environmental devastation. The plan is also likely to test the commitment of the Indonesian government to meet the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) goals under the Paris Agreement. READ MORE:
https://jakartaglobe.id/opinion/food-estate-project-new-ecological-disaster-brewing-in-kalimantan
