REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- Indonesia will still find it difficult to achieve self-reliance in rice, corn and soybean production due to limited farm land, agriculture observer Dwi Andreas Santosa said. The satellite image shows that the area of available farmland to develop the three commodities remains unchanged at 7.7 million hectares in the past few years, the professor of the Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB) said.

"If we want to reach self-reliance in the three commodities, 7.7 million hectares of farmland will surely not be enough," he said here on Wednesday.

For its part, he suggested that the government should focus on one of the three commodities, particularly rice which has high political value. If the government only focuses on rice production, the 7.7 million hectares of farmland will be enough to meet demand for the staple, he said.

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Meanwhile, Khudori, agriculture observer of the Indonesian Political Economics Association said the limited farmland has made self-reliance in the three commodities difficult to achieve.

"If the area of farmland is only that, and if the area of harvest of one of the commodities increases, then the area of harvest of the other commodities will decline accordingly. This has happened for tens of years," he said.

Indonesia's rice production currently reaches 36.29 million tons per year, while its rice consumption stands at 18.72 million tons. 

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