Indonesia's 'Green Agriculture' Strategies and Policies: Closing the gap between aspirations and application

Indonesia's agricultural policies have recognized the environmental, social and economic imperative of green agriculture, and a significant portion of the national strategy of green growth aims to reduce agriculture's environmental footprint. But while such an approach is often crucial, it can be incomplete and only generates arbitrary good practices. Thus, a gap between aspirations and applications of sustainable agriculture does exist. This study provides an overview of the stateof- the-art of green agriculture, the policies and strategies associated with it, the commonly applied instruments, and the situation in the field. The study aims to capture recent findings on the following questions: What are prominent environmental adverse drivers and impacts of environmental degradation associated with commercial agriculture What are the major features of the country's strategy and policy in relation to green agriculture What mixture of mechanisms, instruments and regulations are being deployed by the government and private sectors to address sustainable agriculture What are capacity strengths and weakness for implementing green agriculture And finally, what have been the main factors contributing to the continued gap between green aspirations and applications on the ground We focus on five commodities that are particularly important based on their competitive outlook and the degree to which they contribute to environmental and social risks for communities and private enterprises. These commercially valuable commodities are rubber, coffee, cacao, palm oil, and rice. The first four commodities have strong global demand, presenting both a threat for environmental degradation and an opportunity when there is a growing preference among a sub-set of international consumers for sustainably grown products. Rice is a staple food of Indonesian people with high domestic demand. In all cases, the environmental challenges are intertwined with social conflict, rural poverty and livelihood uncertainty in the face of climate change and socio-political shocks.

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