Report: Indonesia's food real estate program repeats failures of previous projects

Some large-scale food plantations established by the Indonesian government under the "food estate" program have allegedly been abandoned. The results of a field survey found that wild shrubs had grown on plots of land that had been released for planting cassava and rice in Central Kalimantan province, and abandoned excavators were left at discarded sites.

Activists say the program's failures were evident from the start because of insufficiently conducted impact assessments before selecting sites for deforestation for crops that do not fit the soils. The program's trajectory follows the Mega Rice Project, a failed project from the mid-1990s that failed to increase crop yields and led to the destruction of carbon-rich peatlands.