Data Check: How Many Marginal Farmers in Indonesia Did Mr. Imin Refer To?

Vice Presidential Candidate (cawapres) number 1, Muhaimin Iskandar, stated that there are 16 million farmers in Indonesia who only own 0.5 hectares (ha) of land.

He made this statement during the fourth series of the 2024 Presidential and Vice Presidential Debate, themed 'Sustainable Development, Natural Resources, Environment, Energy, Food, Agrarian, Indigenous Communities and Villages,' at the Jakarta Convention Center (JCC), Jakarta, on Sunday (21/1/2024).

During the vision and mission presentation session, Muhaimin said, "16 million of our fellow farmers only own 0.5 hectares of land, while there is someone who owns 500,000 hectares of land as power granted to him by the state."

This statement is consistent with the results of the 2023 Agricultural Census. In 2023, there were 16.89 million smallholder farming households (RTUP) out of a total of 29,342,202 individual farming units. These are farmers with land ownership below 0.50 ha.

This number is up from 10 years ago, which was 14.25 million farmers out of 31,705,295 individual farming units. Furthermore, the percentage of smallholder RTUPs to the total RTUPs using land in Indonesia has also increased in the last 10 years, from 55.33% in 2013 to 60.84% in 2023.