High price to pay to boost national food supply

Land clearing: A worker using a tractor to plow land designated for the food estate programme in Tewai Baru, Gunung Mas regency, Central Kalimantan. — The Jakarta Post/ANN

The stream that supplied Indah Lestari’s family with fish has dwindled to a trickle since rainforest surrounding her farm was cleared by Indonesian soldiers – leaving behind a barren and eerie landscape that resembles the surface of the moon.

Lestari, from Tewai Baru village in Gunung Mas regency, said she could do nothing when the armed troops seized half her land in late 2020 to make way for a huge cassava plantation meant to help boost domestic food supplies during the Covid-19 pandemic.