Mari kita masuk cerita Indonesia nak buka tanah sebesar 2.5 juta hektar untuk perladangan di Papua (dulu Irian Jaya).
Bukan dia nak tanam sendiri beras, gandum, sayur dan buah-buahan, tapi tanah ini disewakan/lease kepada pelabur asing.
Ini pun namanya Foreign Direct Investment, tapi bukan bawa masuk kilang, tapi untuk sektor pertanian.
Dan pelabur, katanya, perlu membuat jalan-raya, warehouse dan pelabuhan. Kalau tidak macam mana dia nak eksport barangan makanannya kelak?
Mungkin ada pelajaran untuk negara kita bersama, jika Malaysia/Singapore nak buka tanah atau nak melabur.
Heehee: Singapore buka tanah apa? Pasir untuk dia nak 'membesar' pun tak cukup! Kahkahkah.
Berapa besar 2.5 juta hektar tu? Terengganu seluas 1.3 juta hektar.
Maknanya hingga DUA KALI saiz Terengganu, tanah di Papua (dulu Irian Jaya) nak disewakan kepada orang asing. Selama 35 tahun.
(Tanah Pahang sebesar 2.03 juta, Perak 2.1 juta, Kelantan 1.5 juta hektar).
Dan sila lihat Google Maps. Papua ni besar sungguh - lebih besar dari pulau Jawa dan Sumatra kalau disatukan pun!
Waduh, pak, gede bener ini!
Tanah kelapa sawit di Kalimantan dan Sumatra yang 'dibeli' oleh syarikat Malaysia, sebenarnya kebanyakannya hanya disewa/lease, selama kira-kira 30 tahun. Itu yang saya difahamkan.
30 tahun ni cukup untuk satu cycle pokok sawit hidup dan mati tua.
KABUPATEN MERAUKE
Papua/Irian Jaya ini ialah Provinsi (province) yang ke-33 di Indonesia.
Kalau Malaysia ada 13 negeri, Indonesia ada 33 provinsi.
Baca di sini - 33 provinsi dan logo setiap provinsi - besar dan megah negara orang!
Yang nak dibuka seluas 2.5 juta hektar itu hanya SATU kabupaten (regency atau daerah), bernama Merauke.
Kecik saja dia buka tanah, dah dua kali saiz Terengganu.
Cerita Kabupaten Merauke di sini.
LIHAT GAMBAR. Pulau besar New Guinea sendiri ada dua kerat - di sebelah kiri ialah Papua milik Indonesia. Papua ni ialah provinsi yang paling banyak airport! Sebabnya ialah ia pulau berhutan tebal dan bergunung-ganang. Tetapi tanah Merauke itu tanah rata (flat land).
Di kanan pulau New Guinea ialah negara lain, bernama Papua New Guinea. Di sini banyak syarikat pembalakan Malaysia. Banyak kontroversi di sini - oops! Itu cerita lain.
Cerita di bawah ni. Juga baca laporan ini - Indonesia aims to be world's breadbasket.
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The Straits Times, Singapore (27 Feb 2010)
Foreign farmers welcome in Papua
Jakarta aims to attract investors to Papua for an agro-industrial project that will create hundreds of thousands of jobs
By Wahyudi Soeriaatmadja, Indonesia Correspondent
JAKARTA: Indonesia is about to try turning some of its vast tracts of fertile land into the colour of money.
The Agricultural Ministry is putting the finishing touches on a programme aimed at getting foreign and local investors to mass-produce crops both for the Indonesian market and for export.
The programme will allow foreign and local investors to lease and manage food estates in Merauke, a regency in the eastern-most province of Papua.
Senior ministry official Hilman Manan was quoted by Agence France-Presse last week as saying that Merauke had 2.5 million ha of land which was ideal for cultivation.
“The area is flat and has a good climate. Its soil is appropriate,” he said.
“Sumatra is already congested with other plantations... and Kalimantan is full of mining areas and many plantations.”
Japan, South Korea and some Middle Eastern countries have expressed interest in the programme, he said.
Large-scale farming by Indonesian and foreign firms has been going on for years. But it has mostly been confined to oil palm. Commodities such as corn and sugar cane are still imported.
In recent years, land-scarce countries have tried to lease Indonesian soil to grow crops for their own people.
Saudi Arabia’s Bin Laden group last year reportedly considered developing up to two million ha of farmland in Papua to grow basmati rice. The US$4.3 billion (S$6 billion) plan apparently stalled in October because of land acquisition problems.
Earlier this month, the partly government-owned Minerals Energy Commodities Holdings from the United Arab Emirates said it was keen on renting 100,000ha of land in Kalimantan to produce rice, sugar cane, oil palm and fruit.
On Thursday, a ministry spokesman told The Straits Times that local governments in Merauke, home to only 175,000 people, were eager for foreign investment and for the estate scheme to take off.
“We cannot do this mass farming on Java because we need to protect small farmers,” he added.
He was echoing earlier concerns that the scheme, if launched nationwide, would crush small-scale farmers in Java, Bali and Nusa Tenggara.
There are an estimated 42.6 million small-scale farmers, mostly in heavily populated Java. About 70 per cent of Indonesia’s food supply comes from the island.
Ministry officials say the Merauke food estate will have a mix of crops – from rice padi, maize, soya bean and sugar cane to oil palm. Indonesia is now the world’s top producer of palm oil.
To make sure that the estates are not seen by residents of the areas as a form of “land grab”, investors will be given only up to 100,000ha each to develop, with a 35-year land-use lease. This can be extended later.
Investment firms will be given tax and custom duty breaks but they have to be joint ventures, with foreigners holding a 49 per cent stake at most.
“We will also mandate the amount of produce that can be exported and what has to stay in the domestic market,” said the Agricultural Ministry spokesman.
Businesses such as the PT Bangun Tjipta Saran conglomerate have said that they are raring to grow corn and sugar cane. But they say they desperately need the government’s help to develop infrastructure such as roads, a port and new airport runways.
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