Jakarta (VNA) – Indonesian President Joko Widodo on September 23 announceda plan to develop vast farm estates across the archipelago to ease the nation’sreliance on imported food.

Under theplan, the farm estates will expand nearly 800,000 hectares, an area 10 timesthe size of neighbouring Singapore, to grow rice, cassava and maize for the world's fourth-most populouscountry, Widodo told a cabinet meeting.

He said theproject would anticipate the world's food crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic,mitigate climate change as well as to curb the country’s reliance on importedfood.

The earlyphase has already started in North Sumatra, as well as central Kalimantan onthe island of Borneo.

Eventually itmay be extended to three more regions on the world's biggest archipelago –South Sumatra, Papua and East Nusa Tenggara.

The project,however, is facing criticism from environment groups who have warned suchprojects mostly exploit peatland areas and encourage forest fires blamed forthe seasonal haze that has choked much of the region for the past two decades.

Earlier thismonth, Greenpeace Indonesia warned that converting carbon-rich peatland intogiant farmlands could cause an environmental catastrophe./.