Contemplating Indigenous Peoples' Rights and Food Resilience Strategies in Merauke Food Estate: A Comparative Study with India’s Food Estate

¹ Faculty of Law, State University of Surabaya, Surabaya, Indonesia
² Department of Law, University of Allahabad, India

^* Corresponding author: ahmadmubaroq@unesa.ac.id

Abstract

Who is supposed to benefit from the food estate? Introduced during the era of New Order and now back on the table, this policy has indeed taken proponent advocacy (much critique included) to strictly legal or socionatural implications such as those related to indigenous rights and food sovereignty. In Indonesia, the Merauke Food Estate Project is intended to support food security, but has led to land grabs from the Marind indigenous community. As such, this national strategic plan may violate the constitutional and human rights of indigenous peoples. India has similar concerns wherein projects like Mega Food Parks in food estates involves encroachment of rights of Adivasis. This article employs a normative-juridical framework to compare food estate policy in both countries. Working through a legislative and comparative perspective, the results demonstrate that constitutional acknowledgment of indigenous peoples along with their incorporation in national projects hits obstacles for practical approval as a result of more general development and market policies. At the Freeport-McMoRan mine in Merauke, deficient procedures relating to Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) and recognition of customary land rights are threatening local food security. Bureaucratic hurdles and commercialization have constrained India’s more robust community institutions. The study finds that safeguarding food security through national programs requires a respect for indigenous rights, a focus on policies that are ecologically sound and local engagement.