15/03/2013 (Jakarta Post) - The Sumatra chapter of Food Farmers Network (JARITANGAN) has asked for support from the Food Agriculture Organization (FAO) to push Batanghari regency and Jambi administration to revoke permits of five palm oil plantations on or near agricultural land belonging to local communities.

According to JARITANGAN acting coordinator, Nurbaya Zulhakim, Batanghari is one of regencies in Jambi who have chosen food self-sufficiency as a central program in the hope that by 2015, they can enjoy local, homegrown food.

It is not impossible to achieve food self-sufficiency in Batanghari due to vast swaths of agricultural land. Most farmers in the area still practice Beumo, a local tradition system of farming in which they work on paddy fields and rubber at the same time.

“Paddy cultivation is facing a serious threat from palm oil plantations on paddy fields, on irrigation areas and on swampy land which could be used as paddy fields,” said Nurbaya.

During 2012, five companies received permits to open plantations, most of them located on paddy fields or on paddy-field buffer areas. PT Inti Citra Agung (ICA), for example, obtained a permit for 7,800 hectares of mostly ancestral land - tanah ulayat - belonging to Mersam communities and around 2,400 hectares are forests which function as water catchment areas and the water resources for 400 hectares of surrounding paddy.

Nurbaya said the presence of PT ICA, or previously PT Inti Agro Aromatic (IAA), made people afraid. “They are afraid of losing their ancestral land. They also worry that the paddy fields the Mersam communities depend on for their livelihood will go dry,” said Nurbaya.

Similarly, PT Dhamasraya Palma Sejahtera has permits to open plantations on 6,000 hectares of land – mostly paddy fields belonging to local communities.

Nurbaya said all of the permits were given by local administrations without any consultation with locals or land suitability surveys.

“Such rapid changes in land use in Batanghari will not only seriously impact the survival of agriculture in the area but could trigger more land conflict in the regency,” said Nurbaya.