31/05/2016 (Jakarta Post) - In an effort to increase domestic corn production, the Agriculture Ministry has intensified its efforts to integrate the planting of corn and oil palm in 1 million hectares of plantation areas across the archipelago.

The program, which has been running since last year, is expected to not only fulfill the demand for animal feed factories but also boost the income of farmers and reduce corn imports, Agriculture Minister Amran Sulaiman said.

“Besides the integration of corn and palm oil plantations, there will also be a program to integrate oil palm plantations with cattle farms as well as oil palm-paddy integration,” he said on Friday as quoted by Kontan.co.id.

The cultivation process would be carried out by planting corn on the sidelines of vacant palm oil fields, he said, explaining that corn would be planted in the spaces between palm oil trees that until now was just covered by reeds.

Amran said such integration efforts had been implemented in West Sumatra over up to 14,000 hectares of oil palm plantations.

Furthermore, in order to support the palm oil farmers in implementing the integration program, the minister also pledged to provide them with high-quality corn seeds.