While oil has been the mainstay of East Timor's economy in the past, it is farming that is transforming rural areas and creating a new breed of entrepreneurs.

Jakarta – Nearly 20 million Indonesians, of a total population of 250 million, go to bed hungry every night, according to a regional overview of food insecurity in Asia and the Pacific, issued by t

Jakarta – Finance Minister Bambang Brodjonegoro said the government disbursed Rp 3.8 trillion, or one-fifth of the total of Rp 20.7 trillion in village funds last month, due to administrative glitc

Jakarta – About 70 percent of Indonesia's land consists of infertile soil, says soil expert Nurhajati Hakim.

Yogyakarta – Indonesia could face food crisis in the next three years because each year 100,000 hectares of farmland changes function as the population expands, the Agriculture Ministry has warned.

Linda Yulisman – With its high food self-sufficiency target, the government is considering reviving the stalled "food estate" program of the prior administration by involving private and state-owne

Satria Sambijantoro, Jakarta – Farmers reported declining rice production throughout last year, indicating a challenging test for President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's goal to secure the domestic rice s

Yeremi Sukoyo & Hotman Siregar, Jakarta – Intervention from President Joko Widodo is needed to a resolve dispute between two ministries fighting over control of annual village funding to the tu

Ina Parlina, Jakarta – President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo reiterated on Friday his target for achieving rice self-sufficiency for the country in the next three years and said that his gover

Jakarta – President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has issued a government regulation that would entitle village heads to a salary.

Mataram – Dozens of farmers from Central Lombok, staged a protest on Friday at the Public Works Agency office in Mataram, West Nusa Tenggara (NTB), demanding the administration fix the

Khoirul Amin, Jakarta – It appears the government will miss its target of attaining food self-sufficiency this year, as data shows the nation of 240 million people is becoming increasin

The newly-passed Village Law is expected to bring change to the grassroots level, after being neglected for years under the New Order regime, a lawmaker has said.

Made Arya Kencana, Nusa Dua – Indonesia's food resilience is considered so weak that it could put the people in jeopardy unless the government immediately took measures to increase food

The government of Timor-Leste (East Timor) plans to provide Cabo Verde (Cape Verde) land for agriculture, as part of an arrangement that is similar to what it already has with Angola an

Ezequiel Freitas – The Asia Foundation is concerned about the government's decentralization program to be implemented in the districts because the program does not value the agriculture

Charlie Campbell – In East Timor, families have learned to dread the onset of November.

Mary O'Shea – Armindo de Deus has worked all his life as a coffee farmer in the Ermera district of Timor-Leste. He is a wiry, weather-beaten man with darting, milky eyes.

Anggi M.

Arya Dipa, Bandung – Farmers and activists in West Java have slammed the government for implementing agrarian policies that favor large-scale producers at the expense of small farmers.

Indonesia's agriculture industry has seen growing productivity over the past decade despite a decline in the number of workers, a national census shows, but the industry remains far beh

Palmerah – The number of farming households over the last 10 years has declined by 5.04 million. Over the same period, the number of agribusinesses has grown by 1,475 companies.

Bali's mystically beautiful rice fields, watered by an intricate, centuries-old subak irrigation system, are near collapse as farmers sell their properties to developers for villas and

Tunggadewa Mattangkilang, Balikpapan – A reduction in land devoted to agricultural use is to blame for Indonesia's increasing imports of staple foods and other products, a presidential

A coalition of organisations has requested the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Commission to take action under its Early Warning and Urgent Action procedures to address the di

Anggi M. Lubis, Jakarta – With less than one year left for the government to achieve self-sufficiency by 2014, failure is already in sight.

Markus Junianto Sihaloho – The House of Representatives passed a key bill on Tuesday aimed at empowering the country's largely impoverished agrarian class, but the passage was overshado

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Tassia Sipahutar, Jakarta – President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's ambition to make the country self-sufficient in beef, among other main commodities, will likely remain out of sight, tha

Dili – An increase in new, higher-yield seed varieties is helping some rural communities produce more food in Timor-Leste, but greater support is still needed, aid agencies say.

Prodita Sabarini, Wamena, Jayawijaya – A mama walks barefoot under the skin-burning sun in a hamlet in Piramid district, Jayawijaya regency.

Linda Yulisman, Jakarta – The Business Competition Supervisory Commission (KPPU) says it will soon launch a probe to determine the reasons behind a prolonged spike in beef and cattle pr

Indonesia has rejected a request for an increase in beef import quotas, an industry group said on Friday, urging the government to reconsider its beef sustainability push after prices i

Indonesians with an appetite for beef may find themselves out of luck this month, as skyrocketing meat prices have caused several vendors to close shop and go on strike.

Elly Burhaini Faizal, Jakarta – The government needs to prohibit the conversion of rice fields into housing, industrial complexes or other non-agricultural activities as part of efforts

Markus Junianto Sihaloho – Legislators have praised the recently passed Food Law as laying the foundation for boosting food security, but critics contend that it leaves the question of

Pitan Daslani – As Indonesia joined the rest of the United Nations to commemorate World Food Day, politicians and agricultural experts said that our country's food-security policy shoul

Hans David Tampubolon, Jakarta – The government has said that the national rice stock is enough to cover the nation's needs for the next seven months.

Arya Dipa and Slamet Susanto, Bandung/Yogyakarta – Agriculture Minister Suswono said the drought in various provinces in Indonesia had caused 23,000 hectares (ha) of 13 million ha of fa

Linda Yulisman, Jakarta – The government's plan to reinstate state-owned logistics firm Bulog's role as a buffer stock agency of several basic commodities, including rice, sugar and soy

Elly Burhaini Faizal, Jakarta – Excessive use of imported hybrid seeds in local farming to boost rice production will affect local plant varieties and eventually lead them to extinction

Selwyn Moran – West Papua, the easternmost island under Indonesia's control, is a land beset by troubles.

Arya Dipa and Nana Rukmana, Bandung/Cirebon – Fifty-two percent of the nation's network of irrigation systems needs repair, a top agriculture official says.

Kafil Yamin, Indramayu – Another month of plying his becak in the capital city and Sarjo will be coming back to this West Java district to harvest the rice ripening on his 1,400 square

Alina Musta'idah – Indonesian farmers use an alarming amount of pesticides – including some with illegal toxic chemicals – on their crops, the People's Coalition for Food Sovereignty (K

Jakarta – A coalition of NGOs have warned that the 2012 Land Acquisition Law could lead to the massive conversion of farmland in Indonesia, reducing food production.

Lenny Tristia Tambun – A national business organization has called on the government to reconsider its beef "self-sufficiency" program, which its members say has caused a scarcity of th

Jakarta – Because the government has failed to fulfill its promise of agrarian reform, the process of rural proletarianisation continues unabated.

Tunggadewa Mattangkilang, Balikpapan, East Kalimantan – Millions of the country's traditional fishermen have left their jobs to become motorcycle taxi drivers, street vendors or trash p

Tunggadewa Mattangkilang, Samarinda, East Kalimantan – Land issues and mine permits are threatening to scuttle a government plan to turn East Kalimantan into a center for national food