The Implementation Gap of Food Security Policy: A Structural Analysis of Extractive Dominance and Agrarian Politics

Abstract

Food security in Indonesia reveals a difficult paradox: strong regulatory commitments but unequal agrarian politics, especially in extractive regions. This study takes West Kutai Regency, East Kalimantan, as its empirical case, an area with a drastically declining Food Security Index despite its large agricultural land potential. Using a qualitative approach and document analysis of regional regulations as well as spatial and statistical secondary data, this study uncovers three interrelated layers of problems. First, the land tenure structure dominated by Other Use Areas (APL) and the political licensing cycle have narrowed the space for food policy from the outset. Second, policy contradictions arise when food diversification programs must compete with much greater incentives and licensing facilities for the palm oil and coal mining sectors. Third, the adaptive Sustainable Food Gardens (P2L) program emerged as a household-level survival strategy. However, its effectiveness is limited and risks becoming a symbolic gesture in place of the loss of large-scale food barns. This study still has several limitations, particularly in its reliance on secondary data and document analysis, which limits the exploration of community-level experiences and the dynamics of policy implementation in the field. In addition, the study focuses primarily on structural and regulatory dimensions, so the socio-economic impacts on local farmers, household food resilience, and actor interactions at the village level have not been explored comprehensively. Future research is therefore recommended to employ mixed-method or participatory approaches involving interviews, field observations, and longitudinal analysis in order to deepen understanding of the relationship between extractive expansion, agrarian change, and food security sustainability. Further studies may also compare other extractive regions in Indonesia to strengthen the broader relevance and generalization of findings regarding the structural challenges of food policy implementation.

Keywords: Food Security; Policy Implementation; Agrarian Politics; Extractivism;