REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, BOGOR -- Indonesia will intensify efforts to create more rice fields until 2045 with regard to achieving its target of becoming the world's food barn. To achieve the target, the government to open another one million hectares of rice fields.

Head of Agricultural Land Resource Development and Research Center, Prof. Dedi Nursyamsi said rice field development was done in stages and this year there would be one million hectares of swamp and dry land that have not been maximally exploited so far to be developed.

Prof. Nursyamsi said to achieve the target of becoming the world's food barn in 2045 Indonesia would need 14 million more hectares of fields.

Indonesia's agricultural land at present totals 35 million hectares of which eight million hectares are new rice fields. He said the total was not yet adequate to achieve the target, he said after a coordination meeting on swamp and dry land development on Monday.

He said 14 million more hectares would be needed until 2045 based on the rate of productivity at 5.4 tons per hectare, 1.3 population growth, 60 to 90,000 hectares of land conversion per year and others.

"One million hectares more will be added this year and this will be for rice fields," he said.

He said his office had already identified the land to be used for the extension which is swamp and dry land.

He said the dry land in the country is vast enough, reaching 191 million hectares including forests but the potential for agriculture is more or less 35 million hectares.

Of the total, four million hectares are located close to water sources. "The dry land close to the water sources have been identified and made priority," he said.

The swamp available has also been identified totaling 10 million hectares, he added.

"This is new land and not the existing one," he said.

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