JAKARTA: Fourteen companies including the world's largest instant noodle maker PT Indofood Sukses Makmur and chemical maker DuPont have agreed to support a sustainable agriculture partnership program yesterday.They reached an agreement during the first day of the World Economic Forum - East Asia conference in Jakarta, and called the arrangement as WEF Indonesia Partnership for Sustainable Agriculture.The initiative to launch this program has been among Indonesias main focuses in the WEF on East Asia and will be evaluated at the next annual meeting of WEF in Davos, Swiss, in 2012, Indonesia's Top Economic Minister Hatta Rajasa said.The agreement underlines targets to boost agriculture productivity by 20%, to reduce emission by 20%, and cut poverty level by 20%. The initiative has been termed as 20-20-20.The initiative will start in July, Minister Hatta said in a press conference on the sideline of the WEF on East Asia meeting yesterday, while mentioning other companies engaged would be Astra International, Cargill, Kraft, Unilever, Swiss RA, Sygenta, Bunge, Metro, Mckenzie, Monsanto, Sinar Mas, and Nestle.To support the program, Nestle will start a cocoa project in Sulawesi to enhance farmers productivity and boost their revenues as well as to improve milk productivity of dairy cows in East Java, said the company's Indonesia head of operations Arshad Chaudhry.In the near future, Nestle will sign a memorandum of understanding with Governor of East Java in Geneva, Swiss to realize the plan.In addition, Sinar Mas Argo Resources & Technology also plans to engage farmers for improving harvest, financial aid disbarment, plasma rejuvenation, and escalating productivity, according to President Commissioner Franky O. Widjaja.The measure is expected to be one of the solutions to anticipate the threat of food crisis. In addition, WEF on East Asia focuses on food crisis management that should be commented positively by each attending country.To anticipate lower productivity, food producers must apply a good practice. As an example, palm oil productivity in Indonesia is less than 3 tons per hectare, whereas it has a potential to achieve 5 tons per hectare, according to Franky.Government incentivesThrough the agricultural sector, Indonesia is predicted to not face a food crisis. In fact, it can even supply foods to the global market, a scenario that is most possible to happen if the government supports with incentives.Meanwhile, on a session titled Asias Consumers Dilemma, Nestle Executive Vice President and Zone Director Frist Van Dijk said that the governments have to prevent a food crisis by way of promoting a good environmental management through an efficient use of energy and water. (Diena Lestari/Sepudin Zuhri) (t01/msw)

---

Artikel Terkait

Berita Lainnya

Berita Terbaru