2018, Ministry of Agriculture Will Develop Four Million Ha of Maize Land

By : Abraham Sihombing And Aldo Bella Putra | Monday, November 27 2017 - 18:00 IWST

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INDUSTRY.co.id - Jakarta - The Indonesian Ministry of Agriculture is targeted to develop 4 million hectares of land for maize by 2018. This is done as a follow-up step after Indonesia was named the 7th largest producer of corn in the world this year from its 9th position.

"One of the successes of Indonesia to increase corn production this year is a special effort made by the government in this case the Ministry of Agriculture in developing a land area of 3 million hectares to plant corn," said Anna Astrid, Head of Food Commodity Ministry of Agriculture, in Jakarta on Saturday (11/25/2017).

Besides, as well as Anna, the Department of Agriculture also integrated the oil palm plantations and Perhutani with corn plantations. In addition, the partnership is built between the Joint Food Company (GPMT) with corn farmers.

"Another effort by the government is the pricing of under corn at the farm level. Thus, Indonesia this year is believed to have no import of corn," said Anna.

Anna said, according to data from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the total production of Indonesian maize in 2014 was recorded only 748,320 bushels or about 19,000 tons of maize.

"However, based on data from ARAM-II 2017, Indonesia's maize production in 2017 was recorded at 28 million tons or about 1.1 billion bushels. That means an increase in corn production is rapidly within three years," said Anna.

Currently, the United States is still the largest corn producer in the world then followed by China, Brazil, IOWA, Argentina and Ukraine, respectively ranked 2, 3, 4.5 and 6. With a production of 1.1 billion bushels, Indonesia has approached the position of Ukraine production which reached 1.3 billion bushels.

"Therefore, we expect Indonesia's rank in the next one or two years to rise to fifth place, above Argentina and Ukraine," added Anna.

Anna also pointed out; the achievement is proof that the agricultural programs initiated Andi Amran Sulaiman, Minister of Agriculture RI, quite effective. The reason, at the same time, the Ministry of Agriculture also claims to improve the welfare of farmers. (Abraham Sihombing)