The Ministry of Agriculture is asking sugar refiners to use 40,000 hectares of land in Merauke, West Papua Province, to establish sugar cane plantations to supplement raw sugar supplies for the refining industry, a senior ministry official said on Friday.
The lands offered by the ministry were originally intended for prospective migrants under the government’s transmigration program, but were never taken up, said Achmad Mangga Barani, the ministry’s director general of plantations, adding that the land did not infringe upon environmentally sensitive rainforest.
Soil research by the Bogor Institute of Agriculture, or IPB, and the Indonesian Sugar Research and Development Center, or P3GI, indicates that the prospective Merauke plantations have the potential to produce cane with 13 percent sugar content, far higher than the national average of 8.2 percent.
“Considering all factors, we invite investors to develop their own plantations to produce raw sugar instead of importing it from other countries,” he said.
M Yamin Rachman, chairman of the Indonesian Refined Sugar Association, or AGRI, welcomed the ministry’s plan. In addition to the Merauke lands, he said, the government was offering another 40,000 hectares in Bengkalis, Riau Province.
“Some 40,000 hectares could supply sugar cane for two raw sugar factories with a capacity of 120,000 tons of cane a day,” Yamin said. He emphasized, however, that a lack of infrastructure remained a major problem. He urged the government to improve infrastructure to attract the attention of investors.
Indonesia imported about 1.4 million tons of sugar in 2008.
Source : The Jakarta Globe
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