Manado – Deputy Minister of Home Affairs, Bima Arya Sugiarto, emphasized that the acceleration of food self-sufficiency must be carried out by optimizing land, providing fertilizers, and supporting infrastructure such as irrigation. He highlighted the fact that after the New Order, irrigation development in Indonesia tended to stagnate, even though its existence is very crucial to increase harvest yields.
“We were ordered to oversee President Prabowo Subianto’s vision, oversee the Minister of Agriculture, and the Coordinating Minister for Food so that food self-sufficiency can be achieved in two years. One of the main challenges is the lack of attention to irrigation. In fact, if this is optimized, we can achieve a production of 30 million tons of rice per year,” said Bima Arya.
He explained that in several visits to 15 provinces, it was found that many irrigation systems had not been renovated for a long time. Most of the irrigation systems that are still functioning today were built during the Dutch colonial era or the New Order. Unfortunately, many of these irrigation systems have been neglected due to minimal maintenance and a lack of water management personnel.
Bima Arya emphasized that regional heads have an important role in overseeing this program in the field. According to him, the budget allocation of trillions of rupiah for the agricultural sector will not have a significant impact if there is no good supervision and coordination at the regional level.
“The problem is whether regional heads understand and are able to oversee this. Many regional heads have high concern for this program, but there are also those who still care less. If the supervision from regional heads is weak, this great vision will not be realized optimally,” he said.
Therefore, he invited regional heads to be more active in ensuring that all food self-sufficiency acceleration programs run well from upstream to downstream. With strong synergy between the central and regional governments, it is hoped that food self-sufficiency can be achieved in a shorter time, so that people’s welfare can increase significantly.
This was reinforced by the statement of the Coordinating Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development, Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono (AHY), at the 2025 East Java Food Security Coordination Meeting in Surabaya, Friday. AHY emphasized that infrastructure has a strategic role in realizing food security and self-sufficiency in Indonesia.
“The dam must have a real impact. We must ensure that there are primary, secondary, and tertiary irrigation connections so that agricultural land can be irrigated optimally and increase productivity,” said AHY. He added that his party will continue to coordinate with the Ministry of Public Works (PU), the Ministry of Agrarian Affairs and Spatial Planning (ATR), and the Ministry of Transportation to ensure that infrastructure development supports the agricultural sector optimally.
