- Indonesia’s new president, Prabowo Subianto, has retained incumbent fisheries minister Sakti Wahyu Trenggono to oversee expansion in productivity in captive fisheries over the next five years.
- Sakti has pledged to revive ailing aquaculture ponds, most of which are located on the northern coast of Java, where numerous village fishing economies are struggling amid depleted near-shore fish stocks and coastal development.
- In July, Indonesia’s then-vice president, Ma’ruf Amin, told a fisheries summit that climate change, biodiversity loss and environmental damage had hindered the output of near-shore fisheries in the world’s largest archipelagic country.
JAKARTA, Indonesia — Sakti Wahyu Trenggono, who will remain as Indonesia’s fisheries minister in the administration of new President Prabowo Subianto, has unveiled an ambitious target to revitalize 78,000 hectares (about 200,000 acres) of unproductive shrimp ponds along Java’s northern coast.
Officials hope that many of these sites, some of which have been dormant for more than three decades, can be brought back into production with the application of new hybridization technology. The minister cited an 80-hectare (200-acre) trial area in West Java province that, he said, showed promising results, which could be rolled out more widely.
“I have a pilot in Karawang of 80 hectares, and the results have been good,” Sakti said, referring to the trial project in West Java.
Industrial aquaculture began to emerge in brackish, fresh and seawater following the introduction of new technology to supply chains in the 1970s. Initially these ponds focused on farming carp and tilapia, before rapid growth in shrimp hatcheries occurred toward the end of that decade.
By the early 2000s, aquaculture ponds in Indonesia covered an area of almost 750,000 hectares (1.9 million acres) and accounted for more than 20% of the archipelago’s fish production, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization.
Almost 90% of this production was consumed within Indonesia, supporting incomes and providing a key source of protein and other nutrients to millions of people.
Hybrid technology was the subject of a 2018 report in which the fisheries ministry used hybridized brackish-water tilapia fingerlings in inactive fish ponds.
“This technology is a breakthrough in alternative cultivation to support the increase in production of environmentally friendly and sustainable aquaculture sectors,” Indonesia’s director general of aquaculture, Slamet Soebjakto, said at the time.
Prawn cocktail
Fisheries ministry officials hope reform and hybrid technology can elevate Indonesia’s performance in key export markets, including the U.S. and China. Indonesia hopes exports to China in the sector will exceed half a billion dollars per year by 2028 in value terms.
“We need to optimize the potential market where the Indonesian shrimp market share is still small,” said Budi Sulistiyo, a director general in the fisheries ministry.
Officials plan to foster diversification of shrimp species in aquaculture sites to enable greater market access abroad.
“Efforts to diversify the Indonesian shrimp market certainly need to be supported by increasing business efficiency in cultivation, processing and logistics, so that the price of Indonesian shrimp is more competitive,” Budi said.
Agricultural extension officers and nonprofit groups are struggling to raise output in agricultural smallholdings and productive community forests, in part to curb the need for deforestation to open new land and increase production.
Historically, productivity gains in aquaculture followed analogous changes to coastal land use, with a large share of the country’s vital mangrove forests ripped out to make way for aquaculture.
Indonesia is the world’s largest archipelagic country and its largest home of wetland forests, with around 3.3 million hectares (8.2 million acres) of mangroves spread across coastlines and river basins.
A 2015 study from the Center for International Forestry Research showed that around 40% of Indonesia’s mangroves were lost in the previous three decades, with researchers attributing growth in aquaculture as the primary driver of the change.
Hybrid engine
Indonesia’s new President Prabowo took office in October and chose to retain Sakti Wahyu Trenggono as the country’s minister of fisheries and maritime resources.
Sakti has pledged to expand marine coastal areas and engage local communities in cleaning up the plastic waste that typically litters shorelines. The minister is also introducing a quota system for local fisheries, while seeking to improve monitoring of fishing zones and deploy data in management.
The government will also seek to intensify productivity on idle aquaculture sites in an effort to raise earnings and create thousands of new jobs across the sector.
This “blue economy” is part of the Indonesian government’s “Asta Cita” policy goals, which refer to Prabowo’s eight main missions, for the next five years.
However, the aquaculture industry is also fraught with environmental risks and is often captured by local elites with scant attention to community welfare.
In April this year, a district court sentenced Daniel Frits Maurits Tangkilisan to seven months in prison for his campaign against shrimp farms within the boundary of a marine national park off Java Island. However, an appellate court in May found the advocacy was a defense of constitutional rights and exonerated Daniel.
Civil society investigators have also documented abusive labor conditions on Indonesian shrimp farms.
The government points to pipeline projects arriving at scale in the coming years, which fisheries officials hope will raise Indonesia’s competitiveness compared with efficient aquaculture industries operated in Vietnam.
A local developer is constructing a 2,000-hectare (5,000-acre) shrimp cultivation facility in Waingapu, a town on Sumba Island in Indonesia’s East Nusa Tenggara province.
Ministry officials have also sought foreign direct investment for new tuna farming in Papua while planning greater domestic processing of seaweed, a policy shift that successive administrations have implemented in the mining sector.
Separately, government figures in Indonesia have acknowledged that climate change plays a growing role in limiting the sector.
“The government has been striving to modernize aquaculture, making the sub-sector more independent and sustainable,” Indonesia’s then-vice president Ma’ruf Amin told an aquaculture forum in July this year.
“However, we are facing obstacles in the form of climate change, ecosystem damage, environmental degradation and diseases that threaten biodiversity,” Ma’ruf said.
Banner image: Shrimp caught in the wild. Image by Ayat S. Karokaro/Mongabay Indonesia.
This story was first published here in Indonesian on Oct. 25, 2024.
Indonesia to expand ‘smart fisheries’ program aimed at empowering communities
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