Indonesia’s Mega Rice Project and Past Failure Shadow
The Indonesian government plans to establish 900,000 hectares of rice fields in the peatlands of Borneo. Some experts worrying about past failure shadow. It is a near-identical project in the 1990s that also failed. The earlier MRP (mega rice project) resulted in vast swaths of peat forest being drained and eventually abandoned as it became clear that the soil was not suited for growing rice. The MRP left behind a wasteland of drained and degraded peat that has since burned during the annual dry season, spewing out of choking haze and large volumes of carbon emissions. The government says the new rice project will learn from past mistakes, but experts say it would be unfeasible at that scale and would risk the clearing of even more peat forests.
The first MRP, initiated in 1995 under the rule of Suharto, was on a scale like no other. A million hectares of rice plantations — an area twice the size of the island of Bali — on peatlands across Central Kalimantan province to boost food security. The government brought in farmers from Java and Bali to cultivate the newly cleared land. But the nutrient-poor peat soil proved too unforgiving for the kind of rice cultivation practiced on the mineral-rich volcanic soils of those islands. The government ultimately abandoned the project, leaving behind a dried-out wasteland that burns on a large scale almost every year.
Nowadays, the government of President Joko Widodo is embarking on a similar megaproject, also in the name of food security. The government says the project is necessary as Indonesia is already feeling the brunt of a food shortage triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. Mr. President has also cited a warning from the UN’s FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) about an impending global food crisis in the face of the coronavirus outbreak.
Just as with the MRP a quarter of a century ago, the government is eyeing the peatlands of Central Kalimantan this time around, specifically in Pulang Pisau district, site of the biggest canal from the failed rice project. A more recent project is the Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate (MIFEE) program, in the easternmost region of Papua. Launched in 2011, it aimed to turn 1.2 million hectares of mostly forested land into the future breadbasket of Indonesia. But the government has found it tough to implement, particularly because of land issues: the estate, as planned, would overlap with conservation areas such as primary forest and water catchment zones, as well as the territories of indigenous tribes.
Activist says the project has become a textbook land grab, and that it contradicts Indonesia’s own commitments to protect peatland. Conversion of peatland for agriculture as a solution for the food crisis is feared to be causing peat to dry up and damage the peat ecosystem on a large scale. This has grave implications for climate change since peatlands are some of the densest sinks of greenhouse gases on earth. Indonesia is already one of the world’s top emitters, with the bulk of its emissions coming from land-use changes, including the conversion of peatland for plantations.
In the end, the government should fulfill its promise of agrarian reform through redistribution of land, which she said would help both farmers and the state, by ensuring greater food security. Without tying the agrarian reform program to the plan to create new rice fields, the government risks sparking more conflict by taking over lands owned by locals that it deems to be unproductive.