Jakarta, Dec. 5 -- Agriculture Minister Andi Amran Sulaiman has said that his ministry will cultivate a total of 2.3 million hectares of rice fields to achieve the food self-sufficiency target set by President Prabowo Subianto.

The rice fields will comprise rice fields developed through the swamp land optimization program, targeted at 851 thousand hectares; new rice field development over 500 thousand hectares; and existing rice fields measuring 1 million hectares, he said here on Thursday.

According to him, the normalization of tertiary, secondary, and primary irrigation will be carried out on the 1 million hectares of existing fields, which are mainly located in Java Island.

With the normalization of irrigation, he said, farmers can ...