The Food Estate venture has been causing quite a stir recently, especially with Jakarta’s own Anies Baswedan condemning it as a failure. But Agriculture Minister Andi Amran Sulaiman has finally addressed all the criticism, and he’s not holding back.

According to the Agriculture Minister, the Food Estate program is not open for debate. He firmly believes that the program has been a triumph, highlighting the fact that 600 hectares of land has already been cultivated with corn and cassava, and it’s thriving. He even mentioned that their agricultural plots span a whopping 7.4 million hectares. That’s no small achievement!

Amran also tackled the issue of using polybags for growing corn in the Food Estate Gunung Mas in Central Kalimantan. He clarified that it was part of an experimental adaptation to different climates, and the results have been nothing short of successful.

But what really struck a chord was when Amran expressed his disbelief at being called back as the Agriculture Minister just to take care of a few hundred hectares of land. He made it very clear that agriculture is not up for debate, it’s all about rolling up your sleeves and getting things done. And considering the millions of hectares of land he’s managing, it’s hard to argue with him.

This all started after Anies Baswedan labeled the Food Estate project as a failure during the third Presidential Debate. He pointed out that over 340,000 hectares of land in Indonesia, plus an additional 600 hectares of cassava in the Food Estate, were all deemed to be failures.

Anies even clarified that the figures for the land used in the Food Estate were too small, correcting it to a massive 340,000 hectares. The criticism didn’t stop there though, with political figure Hasto calling the Food Estate a “crime against the environment.”

It’s clear that there are a multitude of perspectives on the Food Estate project, and it seems like the debate is far from over. But one thing is for certain, the Agriculture Minister is not one to shy away from a challenge and is standing firm on the success of the Food Estate project. We’ll just have to wait and see how this all unfolds.