May 17, 2011

Indonesia allots 50,000 hectares for soy plantation

Indonesia's Ministry of Agriculture has decided to allocate about 50,000 hectares of land for soy plantations, in efforts to boost local soy production this year, said an agriculture ministry official.

Udhoro Kasih Anggoro, Director General of food crops at Ministry of Agriculture has told that the additional land release is expected to increase soy production by up to 50,000 tonnes a year.

Udhoro has also added that the additional land will choose from West, Central and East Java and these lands belonged to PT Pertani. He also told that we will cooperate with the farmers very deeply; we help them to rent land, purchase fertiliser and to pay for harvest. This cooperation system may be deferred from one region to another region.

Chief of National Soybean Council Benny Kusbini has explained that deeper cooperation between the government and soy farmers could improve conditions for farmers. He added that land scarcity is one of the main problems in soy production. As per the Central Statistic Agency report Indonesia's soy production would be reached at 934,000 tonnes this year.