September 25, 2024
JAKARTA – A proposal to import cows and open a large dairy farm in the country to support president-elect Prabowo Subianto’s trademark free meal program has sparked concerns about its potential impact on the environment and climate, with experts urging the government to study the plan further and consider relying on local food sources instead.
The proposal was first raised by Sis Apik Wijayanto, director of state-owned food holding ID Food, at a meeting with House of Representatives members on Sept. 11. He told lawmakers about a plan to import 1.5 million dairy cows to support the free meal program, citing low domestic milk production.
The national dairy cattle herd has been stagnating over the past decade with only about 600,000 head, with the total milk production capacity reaching 900,000 liters in 2022, far below the national demand of 4.4 million liters, according to the Agriculture Ministry.
But Sis’ proposal was met with concerns by some scientists and activists, who argued that the mega farm’s potential environmental costs may outweigh the free meal program’s benefits.
Sonny Mumbunan, coordinator of the University of Indonesia’s Center for Climate and Sustainable Finance (CCSF), said the proposal to import millions of dairy cattle may lead to “major environmental impacts”.
The opening of a large-scale dairy farm, he argued, may worsen the climate crisis through the emission of greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide from land clearing, nitrogen oxide from fertilizers for cattle feed and methane from the livestock’s manure.
Although carbon dioxide represents the largest share of global greenhouse gas emissions, methane and nitrous oxide are considered even more potent in their ability to worsen the climate crisis. Methane can trap over 100 times more heat than carbon dioxide, while nitrous oxide can trap 250 times as much.
Those impacts are a tame estimate. “We still don’t clearly know whether the environmental costs are greater than the free meal program’s budget, [but] the impact is certainly not as simple as we think because it comes from various parts of the supply chain,” Sonny said.
Read also: Mega dairy farm for milk self-sufficiency too optimistic: Farmers
Dairy has been among the top greenhouse gas emitters from global food production, with a 2023 study projecting it to be the third top emitter by 2100, accounting for 19 percent of emissions, behind ruminant meat (33 percent) and rice (23 percent).
The farm proposal may worsen the climate situation in Indonesia, which already saw the agricultural sector, including cattle feed supplements and manure, becoming the third largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, as stated in a climate mitigation target document.
Based upon the available data and projects, Sonny urged the government to conduct further studies to calculate its potential environmental impact before moving forward with investing in giant dairy farms.
The plan to build large-scale dairy farms has also raised fears of exacerbating deforestation across the archipelago, as has been the case with other commodities such as palm oil and pulp and paper, said Greenpeace Indonesia forest campaigner Arie Rompas.
To support the dairy cattle import, the government is reportedly preparing 1.5 million hectares of land for private companies, including forest lands, productive farming lands and oil palm plantations in North Sumatra, East Java, Maluku and Banten, among other regions.
Arie warned that the plan to clear land for dairy cattle could increase the risk of hydrometeorological disasters, ranging from wildfires, to floods and droughts, which have already been more intense and frequent in recent years.
“The potential loss from these disasters may exceed the budget spent for the free meal program,” he said.
Read also: Agriculture among first Indonesia’s industries hit by climate change
Prabowo’s flagship program is set to consume Rp 71 trillion (US$4.7 billion) in next year’s state budget, similar to the country’s reported losses from the 2019 forest and land fires, which amounted to Rp 72 trillion.
Arie acknowledged that Indonesia still needed to improve its children’s nutrition, but he argued that it was possible to do so without harming the environment. He encouraged, among other measures, prioritizing locally sourced, rather than mass-produced food.
“But this can only happen if the government prioritizes long-term food security,” Arie said. “If the goal is only to fulfill political interests, the solution will rely on [short-term] strategies such as importing dairy cattle.”
Aside from prioritizing local foods, the government could also look to diversify food items to push for the free meal program to address the current nutritional gaps in children’s diets, as suggested by Saskia de Pee, a senior technical advisor for nutrition at the United Nations’ World Food Programme. For protein, the government can also look at fish and eggs aside from milk, she added.
The diversification would help authorities to find ways to produce food in a more sustainable way, which starts with a thorough analysis and the consideration of various scenarios.
Read also: Ministry vows Prabowo’s free meal program to use local produce
Other scenarios might include importing dairy cattle in stages rather than all at once.
“Because it’s not just about importing the cows,” Saskia said. “You also need to feed them and keep them free from diseases before processing the milk. Do it gradually and see how that goes.”