SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This article examines the shifting of land and food legal policies in Indonesia. It also discusses legal and political contexts, including historical and current contexts of policies on land and how such policies influenced Indonesian political spectrum. Firstly, it discusses the chaotic land ownership during the Sukarno Old Order era (1945-1966), followed by food politics under the Suharto New Order (1966-1998) and how the regime used rice as a political commodity. To give a more comprehensive analysis, the article then discusses the massive land conversion after Suharto era and how it affected expansion of agricultural land in the outer regions of Indonesia. The article also covers the extent to which the central government has developed legal policies to sustain their agricultural products in Indonesian national development plans. This article concludes that the national strategic project has become one of the main challenges in protecting agricultural land. The government must ensure that the land conversion should be aligned with the needs and priorities of farmers and rural communities to maintain sustainable development of the agriculture sector in Indonesia.