Indonesia developing food-bank estates '10 times the size of Singapore'

A farmer operating a machine in a paddy field in Lambaro, Indonesia’s Aceh province. Photo: AFP

Indonesia is developing vast farm estates across the archipelago – an area 10 times the size of neighbouring Singapore – to counter the nation’s reliance on imported food, President Joko Widodo said recently.

The project, which eventually will span nearly 800,000ha, is preparing land to grow rice, cassava and corn for the world’s fourth-most populous country, Widodo told a televised cabinet meeting.