Optimisation of the Food Estate Program through Cash Waqf to Achieve Food Sovereignty in Indonesia

摘要

Food Estate is a government program with the concept of integrated food production development covering agriculture, plantations and animal husbandry located in a large land area. In simple terms, the concept of Food Estate is like a food industry village. Running this program requires a large capital, so the government has opened up opportunities for investment locations for the private sector to achieve efficiency, effectiveness and added value of the products that are produced. The presence of a wave of private investment in the food estate program was, however, not able to raise the welfare of the tenant farmers. Agricultural land tenure by investors makes the farmers only labourers. It is the investors who are getting all of the benefits in the food estate program. To overcome this problem, it is necessary to look for other capital alternatives. By using library research in this study, cash waqf has been put forward to be used as the capital alternative. Through cash waqf, assets of waqf in the form of empty lands can be processed into agricultural land. Cash waqf can also be in the form of productive loans for farmers and agricultural investment. The large potential of cash waqf in Indonesia is expected to replace the role of private investors.