Indonesia's Agri Official Promotes GM for Self-sufficiency in Food

Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous nation, must adopt GM crops to achieve self-sufficiency in food staples, says Deputy Agriculture Minster Rusman Heriawan. "In Indonesia, we are still not allowed to implement (GMO)...Using GMO will increase our production more. That's the only one solution we have," said Heriawan.

At present, Indonesia allows importation of GM foods such as soybean and corn but planting of GM seeds is not yet implemented. He explained that the government departments and agencies are lacking communication or have various agenda, which cause prolonged progress of new initiatives and regulations, especially regarding GM food. "We have tried different ways to increase our production and finally we came up with this idea… that the remaining strategy for agriculture development is by using GMO," he added.