Indonesian Agency for Agricultural Research and Development
The Indonesian Agency for Agricultural Research and Development "(Indonesian: Badan Penelitian dan Pengembangan Pertanian, abbreviated as Balitbangtan)" abbreviated in English as IAARD is a supporting unit of the Ministry of Agriculture which is responsible for state research, development, and innovation in the field of agriculture. The agency is currently planned to be disbanded and liquidated to the National Research and Innovation Agency (Indonesian: "Badan Riset dan Inovasi Nasional", BRIN). On 30 November 2021, BRIN announced that Food and Agriculture Research Organization (Indonesian: "Organisasi Riset Pangan dan Pertanian", ORPP), transformation of the previously from  Balitbangtan of will be activated and operated soon. History. Formation. The agency was founded by President Suharto, on 26 August 1974 through issuance of Presidential Decision No. 45/1974. There were eleven research and development agencies founded by this Decision. Future Dissolution. During the hearing with Commission IV of People's Representative Council on 25 August 2021, Syahrul Yasin Limpo, Minister of Agriculture expressed his concern about the future BRIN plan of liquidation of ministerial research agencies and turning the agency to become part of BRIN. The Ministry of Agriculture's Balitbangtan is one of ministerial research agencies targeted to be  liquidated and fused into BRIN. While the agency's performances are largely not known at large and publicly known as other research agencies, Indonesian Agency for Agricultural Research and Development is a much larger research agency with established networks of state agriculture research institutes responsible with state agricultural research activities with more than 707.4 million hectares under their responsibility, and possessed large manpower powering it even larger than all Indonesian Institute of Science manpower totaled. Endang S. Thohari, former Ministry of Agriculture scientist and one of founder of Balitbangtan who is currently a Gerindra politician sitting in Commission IV also  lamented the government decision to liquidate the agency she founded with Indonesian agricultural scientists. In the hearing, Limpo asked the support of the Commission IV to spare Balitbangtan from the liquidation, or if even it is liquidated, only parts of basic research divisions are relinquished to BRIN, while specialized agricultural research are still performed by Balitbangtan. Earlier on 20 August 2021, Research Professor Communication Forum of Balitbangtan also voiced the same concern. Tahlim Sudaryanto, Agriculture professor and Head of Research Professor Communication Forum of Balitbangtan submitted the report compiled by the forum to the Ministry of State Apparatus Utilization and  Bureaucratic Reform and Ministry of State Secretariat. In the report, the forum performed analysis and concluded that it is very hard to fuse such a large Balitbangtan to BRIN body smoothly without disturbance. The forum offered two options that are possible: (1) soft integration, and (2) partial integration. If soft integration is chosen, BRIN will lack power to control Balitbangtan, as Balitbangtan is still attached to the Ministry of Agriculture but Balitbangtan programs and funding are controlled and supervised by BRIN. While the option is not advantageous to BRIN, the option is to strengthen BRIN and Balitbangtan in collaboration to  succeeding National Plan of National Research Priorities of the 2020–2024 period. If partial integration is chosen, part of Balitbangtan would be relinquished to BRIN, and what remained of Balitbangtan will be reformed into a non-research institution under the Ministry of Agriculture with tasks and assignments to be determined in the future. While this option is advantageous to BRIN, the execution of the option must not be rushed and pushed into a fixed 31 December 2022 deadline as mandated in the Circular No. B/295/M.SM.02.03/2021. The report also urged the government to change their deadline on liquidation if the second  option is chosen. On 21 September 2021, the Ministry of Agriculture set up plans to disband their own Balitbangtan despite previous ministry reluctance to disband it and relinquished all the units from Balitbangtan to BRIN. As replacement of Balitbangtan, the ministry set up the Agricultural Standardization and System Agency (Indonesian: "Badan Standardisasi dan Sistem Pertanian", BSSP), a regulatory and standardization agency. Along with Balitbangtan disbandment, parts of the Ministry's Food Security Agency are also relinquished to BRIN, while other parts are expected to become an embryo of another agency, National Food Agency. Structure. Based from the latest constituting document  of Balitbangtan, Ministry of Agriculture Decree No.44/2020, Balitbangtan consists of extensive state laboratories and institutes under its umbrella. Balitbangtan consisted with 1 Office of the Head, 1 Agency Secretariat, and 5 Divisions. In total, there are 59 institutes under Balitbangtan umbrella and scattered to 27 branches of Balitbangtan. Aside of these institutes, Balitbangtan also has more than 100 laboratories, experimental stations, animal stations, pastures, and research facilities scattered across 34 provinces of Indonesia. Former institutes under Balitbangtan are: