Land Use Change in Indonesia

KEDIRI, EAST JAVA, INDONESIA - 2013/09/29: Workers transport mud, the raw material for making bricks, in a sugarcane field in Silir village. Many farmers in Indonesia have had to convert agricultural land because it is no longer profitable. Consequently Indonesian agricultural production has declined. Although Indonesia is an agricultural country, it still has to rely heavily on imported food staples such as rice, sugar, soybeans and corn. The Central Statistics Agency (BPS) announced that the number of farming households in Indonesia has decreased by 5.04 million families in the past 10 years. The 2003 Census of Agriculture claimed 31.17 million farm households. But in 2013 the number had fallen to 26.13 million. Indonesia has been listed as the world's largest sugar exporter. In 1930, when Indonesia was still called the Dutch East Indies, some 179 sugar factories produced over 3 million tons of sugar each year. Currently there are only 62 sugar factory in Indonesia.. (Photo by Arief Priyono/LightRocket via Getty Images)