Master's Student in Natural Resource Management, Al Azhar University Indonesia
The idea of a Food Estate as a solution for national food security essentially has a noble goal: to increase food production on a large scale to anticipate national and global food crises. However, news coverage of this program clearly demonstrates that the government's approach to implementing the program tends to ignore past lessons and current ecological and social realities. The long history of failures of similar programs, from the New Order era to the current administration, demonstrates that the Food Estate model, which relies on massive land clearing, has more negative impacts than tangible benefits.
The failure of the Food Estate was not simply due to flawed intentions, but also due to weak planning that was not based on ecological and social carrying capacity. Conditions on the ground, such as the destruction of wildlife habitats, increased pests, ecosystem disruption, and the risk of natural disasters like floods and landslides, are evidence that food sector development cannot be separated from ecological vigilance. In this context, top-down food policies based on technocratic approaches often ignore local realities, including soil conditions, local farming practices, and social dynamics in the target areas.
The failure of Food Estate programs such as the One Million Hectares of Land in Central Kalimantan and the Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate (MIFFE) should serve as a reminder that building food security is not simply about land expansion, but also about sustainability and equity. The current Food Estate model still prioritizes large-scale production without addressing important challenges such as unequal land distribution, local farmer participation, environmental protection, and community-based food sovereignty.
Furthermore, this approach tends to ignore the principle of natural resource regeneration, as clearing primary forests or peatlands for agriculture actually creates damage that is difficult to reverse in the long term. When the forest's water absorption capacity is lost, ecological disaster becomes the price to pay. Therefore, the success of a Food Estate cannot be measured solely by the number of hectares of land cleared or the number of tons of produce produced, but must be seen in the extent to which the program improves farmer welfare, preserves the environment, and strengthens resilient local food systems.
By adopting a large-scale land clearing approach in ecologically fragile areas that are socially important to indigenous communities, areas with high biodiversity and important ecological functions, particularly as buffer zones for tropical forest ecosystems, instead of strengthening food security based on local wisdom and ecosystems that have been established over the years, a similar project is being rolled out again, raising concerns that similar failures of previous decades will repeat themselves.
Learning from this, managing land for food security requires a focus on optimizing existing agricultural land, including through spatial transformation and food security, sustainable intensification, support for environmentally friendly agricultural technologies, and the development of supporting infrastructure. Rather than continually pursuing new land clearing, there should be a serious evaluation of the effectiveness of the existing program and the involvement of local communities in the planning and monitoring processes.
The Food Estate, in its current practice, shows signs of systemic failure due to an overly exploitative and centralized approach. Without a paradigm shift in food policy—from extensive land-based development to development based on ecosystem balance and social justice—this program risks becoming another failed project that is not only economically detrimental, but also ecologically and socially.
