Govt to Turn Nusakambangan Prison Island Into Cattle Farm
Jakarta. The government is planning to develop Nusakambangan, the notorious prison island that houses some of Indonesia's most fearsome criminals, into a cattle farm next year.
Private companies will be involved in the project, which will also train convicted felons to raise cattle.
The government said it will be part of a larger national beef-sufficiency program.
The director general of penitentiaries at the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights, I Wayan K. Dusak, launched the program on Monday (23/01).
Over the next 12 months, the government will start the bidding process for companies interested in the project.
"The government will provide the workers for the farm," Dusak said as quoted by Antaranews.com, referring to the prisoners.
"They will be trained in good farming practices and hopefully they would bring their new skills home when they are released and become farmers themselves," he added.
Nusakambangan is a 24,000-hectare island in the Indian Ocean just south of Cilacap in Central Java. The Justice Ministry owns the island and operates four prisons within its vicinity. Only prisoners, prison officers and their families live on the island.
Prison authorities plan to set aside 20 hectares of land on the island for the cattle farm, Dusak said. He said the project will start by raising 14,000 cattle next year.
Last year, a cattle pen was built on a 2-hectare plot on Nusakambangan. It has received 30 heads of cattle for free from a corporate social responsibility program run by state-controlled Bank Negara Indonesia this year and another 150 heads of cattle bought with money from the state budget.
This program involves 100 prisoners as its caretakers.
The Justice Ministry said there are 150,000 hectares of prison land across the country that can be developed for various industries, including cattle farming.
Indonesians have been consuming more beef as they become wealthier, but today local beef production can only supply 60 percent of the total demand.
This year alone Indonesia will need 3.3 million cattle for slaughter, according to an estimation from the Ministry of Agriculture.
The government's ban on beef import under a self-sufficiency program backfired a few years ago as it created a massive beef shortage in the market and forced farmers to slaughter breeding cows to meet demand.
President Joko Widodo has set a new target of beef self-sufficiency by 2026. Meanwhile, the government plans to bring in more breeding cows from abroad to replenish the domestic population.
Tags: Keywords: