Jakarta (ANTARA) – Indonesia's Forestry Ministry reaffirmed its commitment to supporting sustainable agriculture and the development of technology to help achieve food self-sufficiency.”Going forward, we are ready to support and collaborate to restore ecosystems and achieve food self-sufficiency,” Deputy Forestry Minister Rohmat Marzuki said in a statement on Saturday.As a concrete step, he noted, optimizing land use will become a priority, particularly in non-forested areas.”Open, non-forested land can be optimized as a source of seeds, agricultural downstreaming, and the agroforestry concept, which is one of our priority programs at the ministry,” he said.This was a follow-up to the Discussion Meeting on Artificial Intelligence (AI)-Based Agricultural Development in the Lake Toba Region, held by the National Economic Council (DEN) in North Sumatra earlier this week.The meeting, chaired by DEN Chairman Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, emphasized the importance of integrating the entire ecosystem—from land, technology, human resources, to global partnerships—to accelerate technology-based agricultural transformation in the strategic region.The discussion covered the development of strategic commodities such as garlic and strengthening data-driven agricultural systems through the use of AI.This approach, Marzuki continued, is expected to increase productivity and efficiency, as well as support the stability of food commodity supplies and prices.Furthermore, the use of AI is being promoted in real-time agricultural data collection and analysis systems to support more accurate and responsive policy-making to field conditions.”Through cross-ministerial/institutional collaboration and technological support, the government is encouraging the development of the Lake Toba Region as a model for modern, integrated, productive agriculture that maintains environmental sustainability,” he concluded.