Tapin designs food estate to buffer IKN Nusantara

Rantau, S Kalimantan (ANTARA) - Regional Secretary of Tapin H Masyraniansyah said that  the district government is beginning to design food estate program to support food for the new national capital (IKN) of Nusantara. 

"There are programs from the central government that must be included in the RPJMD (Medium Term Development Plan), including a priority to buffer IKN," he said after chairing the 2023 regional government work plan (RKPD) meeting at the Bapalitbang (Planning, Reasearch, and Development) Office, Wednesday. 

Food estate, he said, is a long term program of the Indonesian government for the domestic food security. The concept is integrated covering horticulture, food crops, plantation, and livestocks in certain areas.

"The food estate program is carried out in collaboration between the Ministry of Agriculture and regional governments in some districts in Indonesia," he said. 

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Head of Tapin Agriculture Agency Wagimin explained that the program adopted some concepts from the central government's food estate program. 

"Not only rice, we also develop soyabeans, corn, chili, livestock, fisheries, and others. We will be one of the buffers for IKN food," he pointed out. 

Food estate program, he said, is in line with the Tapin plan to establish BUMD (regional government-owned enterprise) which will absorb food commodities from local farmers. 

"There will be BUMD to take the role of downstream industry from processing to marketing," he said. 

Tapin's distance from IKN is around 412 kilometers and can be reached aproximately 9.5 hours by road. Wagimin said the relatively close distance can minimize costs of production.