Friday, April 18, 2008
Multa Fidrus, The Jakarta Post, Tangerang
Housing construction in Tangerang municipality has caused massive land conversion of paddy fields and has threatened the livelihood of local farmers.
The municipality's agriculture agency recorded 757 hectares of 1,101 hectares of farmland in the municipality were owned by residential housing developers.
"As a result the municipality has faced a rice crisis. To fulfill our daily needs, we depend on other regions such as Cianjur, Cirebon and Indramayu in West Java for our rice supply," Sunarto, head of the agency, said Monday.
He said local rice production could only provide for residents' needs up to 14 days each month.
"Farmland continues to be reduced each year because more and more productive farmland has been converted since 1972," said Sunarto.
"Farmland continues to be reduced each year because more and more productive farmland has been converted since 1972," said Sunarto.
He said productive farmland could produce an average 12 to 14 tons of rice per hectare per year, while the municipality's total population consumes up to 400 tons each day.
As it is impossible to expand farmland for rice farmers in the city, the administration has planned to move rice farmers to decorative plant farms, which have a higher commercial value, said Sunarto.
Ardiman, a farmer who lives in Neglasari district near Soekarno-Hatta airport, said he and other fellow farmers have left it all up to God because they were unable to prevent residential housing expansion.
"What else can we do? We are just workers in rice fields belonging to someone else," he said.
The airport also claimed more than 500 hectares of farmland in Neglasari, Benda and Batu Ceper districts for an expansion project in 2004. Many locals farmed paddy fields in the districts before the expansion.
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