Samarinda – East Kalimantan Province is developing 1.32 hectares of land for agricultural purposes, an expansion to the existing nine million hectares of land, to support the development of the new capital city Nusantara (IKN).
“This development is the accumulation of the process carried out during the 2019-2022 period,” East Kalimantan Governor Isran Noor stated in a video played during the Symposium on Strengthening Sustainable Agriculture Ecosystem to Support Food Resilience in IKN and Kaltim in Samarinda on Tuesday.
The provincial government has been expanding the land since the designation of its districts — North Penajam Paser and Kutai Kartanegara — as the location for IKN development, with the objective of strengthening the region’s food resilience.
In detail, the expanded land is dedicated for food crop farms, other crop farms, livestock farms, aquaculture, and empowerment forest.
The governor also noted that the province is experiencing an increase in the indicator on farmer’s welfare, measured through the farmer’s exchange rate (NTP) index that had reached 126.39 in 2022, much higher as compared to 96.14 in 2018.
Meanwhile, based on data provided by Statistics Indonesia (BPS), in a monthly period, the province’s NTP in June 2023 was still recorded at 125.5, far above 100 as the balance figure.
However, the figure in June marks a slight decrease of 1.81 percent as compared to the figure in May at 127.81.
NTP itself demonstrates the exchange power of agricultural products with consumed goods and services as well as the cost of production, so the higher the NTP, the relatively stronger the purchasing power of the farmers.
Governor Noor then noted that the province had managed to become a pilot project for the carbon emission reduction program by implementing a related program funded by the World Bank, adding that such a measure also serves as an effort to realize economic transformation.
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