South Kalimantan readies 17,000 ha land for food self-sufficiency

Head of South Kalimantan Plantation and Livestock Suparmi plants gogo rice using intercroping pattern in Jilatan Village, Tanah Laut Distrit, Thursday (26/12/2024). (ANTARA/HO-Pemprov Kalsel)

Banjarmasin, S Kalimatan (ANTARA) - South Kalimantan Plantation and Livestock Office (Disbunnak) is preparing 10,000 hectares of vacant land and oil plam plantation to support Agriculture Ministry's food self-sufficiency and food security program.

Head of the office Suparmi said that the plantation land will be used to plant rice or corn.

"For the first day of planting is five hectares in Jilatan Village, Tanah Laut District," she said when confirmed here on Friday.

The planting was carried out on oil palm plantation using an intercropping of gogo rice seeds.

Previously, Agriculture Minister Andi Amran Sulaiman had given direction to make food self-sufficiency a success, which was then followed up by South Kalimantan Provincial Government by preparing 17,000 hectares of plantation land out of a total of 29,000 hectares available.

"Another 10,000 hectares land is in social forestry environment," she said.

Suparmi described that plantation land in the province is not only oil palm, but also rubber and other commodity plantations that can be intergrated with food crop land, such as rice and corn.

"Rubber plantations are already underway and will be further intensified on rubber plantations that have been rejuvenated," she said.

"It is the South Kalimantan government's commitment to realize food self-sufficiency, especially as South Kalimantan becomes the national food buffer for the new capital city of Nusantara (IKN), East Kalimantan," said Suparmi.

Previously, acting Director General of Plantation of the Agriculture Ministry Heru Tri Widarto emphasized that food security program needs collaboration between the central and regional goverments, as well as across sectors, including assistance and supervision from the Indonesian Army (TNI-AD) for gogo rice plantign and from National Police (Polri) for planting corn.