Semarang — Indonesia's Deputy Agriculture Minister Sudaryono on Tuesday, 14 July 2026 said that decisions on where to build Red-White Village and Urban Village Cooperatives (KDKMP) have drawn contradictory public criticism regardless of location, responding to reports questioning some of its placement on protected farmland, after he opened a sugarcane farmers' forum in Semarang.
"It's difficult if we just follow the news. If it's built on rice fields, that's wrong; if it's built on land that isn't rice fields, people say there's no one there. It's a lose-lose situation either way," Sudaryono told reporters after the event in Semarang, Central Java.
The Minister comments came a day after Central Java Governor Ahmad Luthfi said the National Corruption Prevention Strategy Team (Stranas PK), a task force combining the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), the Ministry of Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform, the Home Affairs Ministry, the National Development Planning Agency and the Presidential Staff Office, had identified several village cooperatives in the province that have been built on land designated as Sustainable Food Agricultural Land (LP2B).
Governor Luthfi said the findings were still being mapped and would be consulted with the land and spatial planning ministry.
Meanwhile, Minister Sudaryono said he had not yet reviewed the specific findings but noted that land conversion rules generally allow exceptions for projects deemed nationally strategic.
"Land taken because of a national strategic project, because of a factory, because of whatever it is, because it's genuinely important, if it truly cannot be avoided, then if possible, we build it in a place that isn't rice fields," he said.
He said the location of each cooperative's building was determined through deliberation and consensus among local villagers rather than being dictated by the central government.
"The point is that every Kopdes location is based on an agreement from the village residents, from the cooperative's own members," Sudaryono said, referring to village cooperative.
"Where it gets built is a consensus decision. It's not what I want, not what the minister wants, not what anyone in particular wants. It's what the villagers want," he explained.
