"Agrarian Reform is a way to overcome extreme poverty and encourage a better business climate, especially for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and people's businesses," he remarked virtually while opening the 2023 Agrarian Reform Task Force (GTRA) Summit 2023 as quoted from an official statement on Wednesday.
Agrarian Reform is a process of restructuring the ownership, control, and use of agrarian resources, especially land.
Minister Hartarto, as chair of the National Agrarian Reform Team, explained that Agrarian Reform, which consists of asset management, is one of the National Strategic Programs (PSN) included in the category of the Economic Equality Program that has a direct impact on strengthening the people's economy, especially those in rural areas, farmers, and fishermen living in coastal areas.
On that occasion, he also conveyed President Joko Widodo's direction at the 2022 GTRA Summit, calling all central and regional officials and government institutions to be open and synergize with each other to implement Agrarian Reform.
"Therefore, the declaration that we agreed on at the 2023 GTRA Summit can be implemented and realized," the minister emphasized.
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He noted that the GTRA Summit activities are important and strategic to be implemented in the midst of national economic recovery efforts. This is considering that Agrarian Reform is also one of the national strategic programs that contributes to the recovery of the national economy by structuring assets through the redistribution of Agrarian Reform Object Land (TORA) as productive business capital.
Apart from strengthening mutual cooperation between ministries, institutions, and regional governments, the minister also urged regional governments to play an active role, including in making the Agrarian Reform program as a regional priority program and include it in the Regional Development Work Plan.
"Please allocate regional budget (APBD) to support the implementation of Agrarian Reform," he noted.
On the same occasion, Minister of Agrarian Affairs and Spatial Planning/Head of the National Land Agency (ATR/BPN), Hadi Tjahjanto, stated that the GTRA should be able to improve the people's economy in a sustainable manner.
He noted that until now, there are 2,500 villages in forest areas, with a population of 1.7 million people living in extreme poverty.
Hence, extremely poor families are looking forward to the state's presence through Agrarian Reform to eradicate inequality in land tenure and ownership, Tjahjanto remarked.
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Translator: Bayu Saputra, Resinta S
Editor: Yuni Arisandy Sinaga
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