Indonesia says it will stop clearing forests to expand rice paddies, citing rice self-sufficiency. The government had planned to convert up to 3 million hectares of forest into farmland, but climate envoy Hashim Djojohadikusumo said the strategic rice reserve of about 5.3 million tonnes makes further expansion unnecessary. Instead, the country will focus on intensification, including better seeds, to lift yields. Indonesia produced 34.71 million tonnes of rice in 2025, above annual demand of 31.19 million tonnes. The halt matters for climate goals because Indonesia wants to be a net carbon sink by 2030. It is not clear how much forest was already converted before the project stopped, and haze from wildfires remains a regional problem.
