If Indonesia Already Has BPN and the Land Bank, Why Is a National Agrarian Reform Agency (BRAN) Still Necessary?

The Draft Law (RUU) on the Regulation of Agrarian Reform has once again attracted attention after the House of Representatives of the Republic of Indonesia (DPR RI) approved it as a DPR-initiated Draft Law on 8 September 2026. The Draft Law, prepared by the Legislative Body (Baleg) of the DPR, contains provisions concerning land redistribution and restitution, the resolution of agrarian conflicts, the restructuring of land tenure and ownership, and the establishment of the National Agrarian Reform Agency (Badan Reforma Agraria Nasional/BRAN). The Draft Law consists of 16 chapters and 70 articles.

Its deliberation is targeted for completion before 24 September 2026, coinciding with National Farmers' Day. Following its approval as a DPR-initiated Draft Law, the subsequent deliberation will be conducted jointly with the Government.

Among the various matters regulated, the establishment of BRAN is one of the most noteworthy. Baleg has designed BRAN as an independent institution under and directly accountable to the President, tasked with handling agrarian reform from planning and implementation to monitoring and evaluation. The Draft Law also provides for a Supervisory Board to ensure the accountability of the institution.

By placing it directly under the President, BRAN is intended to have greater leverage than the agrarian reform coordination mechanisms in place to date. Baleg has even stated that BRAN's decisions are expected to be implemented by the relevant government agencies.

The question that then arises is: why is BRAN necessary if the State already has ATR/BPN and BPN?

BRAN and BPN: What Is the Difference?

This question is important because BPN currently already possesses authorities that directly overlap with the agrarian reform agenda.

Based on Presidential Regulation Number 177 of 2024, BPN is under and accountable to the President. BPN is headed by a Head, who is concurrently the Minister of Agrarian Affairs and Spatial Planning, with a Deputy Head, who is concurrently the Deputy Minister of Agrarian Affairs and Spatial Planning. BPN also has functions relating to land redistribution, community land empowerment, the control and regulation of land tenure and ownership, as well as the handling and prevention of land disputes and conflicts.

With these authorities, BPN already holds a number of important instruments for implementing agrarian reform. This means that BRAN is not being established in a vacuum. Some of the issues that this new agency is intended to address already fall within BPN's scope of work.

However, the two institutions are designed with different approaches.

What Powers Would BRAN Have?

The Chair of the Working Committee/Deputy Chair of Baleg, Ahmad Iman Sukri, explained that BRAN would be an agency under and accountable to the President, with the following functions:

1. Planning of agrarian reform

2. Implementation of agrarian reform

3. Monitoring of the implementation of agrarian reform

4. Evaluation of the administration of agrarian reform.

More interestingly, based on Baleg's explanation on 4 September, BRAN is not intended merely to serve as a coordinating body. Iman stated that BRAN is expected to have the authority to collect/receive land, determine its allocation, and transfer land to entitled parties. He even advocated for the Land Bank to be integrated into BRAN so that there would not be two institutions handling similar functions.

This is because agrarian conflicts do not always concern only certificates or land parcel boundaries. Conflicts may involve forest areas, plantations, mining, state land, indigenous communities, regional governments, and sectoral permits. The DPR's Baleg itself has acknowledged the existence of overlapping regulations, data, and authorities across sectors, including forestry, fisheries, coastal areas, and mining. In this context, BRAN is expected to serve as a cross-sectoral coordination mechanism with the authority to ensure that agrarian reform decisions do not stop at administrative coordination.

Potential Overlap

The next issue concerns the boundaries of authority.

If BRAN has the authority to plan and implement agrarian reform, while BPN retains the authority to carry out land redistribution, control land tenure and ownership, and handle land conflicts, who will make the decision when the authorities of the two institutions intersect?

Baleg itself has raised this issue. During the deliberation of the Draft Law, the need to clarify BRAN's position emerged, including its relationship with other institutions and conflict-resolution mechanisms. Concerns regarding overlapping authorities are among the matters that need to be addressed in the institutional design of BRAN.

Accordingly, the issue is not whether BRAN will replace BPN. Based on the official DPR sources available, there is no statement that BRAN will dissolve or replace BPN.

The more relevant question is: will BRAN serve as the coordinator, decision-maker, implementing body, or simultaneously the supervisor of agrarian reform?

What Is It Actually Seeking to Improve?

Agrarian reform already has a policy basis through Presidential Regulation Number 62 of 2023 on the Acceleration of the Implementation of Agrarian Reform. This regulation covers asset legalization, land redistribution, economic empowerment, agrarian reform institutions, and public participation. The Presidential Regulation also revoked Presidential Regulation Number 86 of 2018.

This means that agrarian reform is not a new policy. What the Draft Law proposes is to strengthen its legal framework while simultaneously establishing a new institution to implement it.

This is where the opportunity for BRAN lies. If the main problem to date has been inter-agency coordination, BRAN could become an institution that ensures agrarian reform decisions do not stop at meetings and recommendations. Moreover, the Draft Law is designed to address cross-sectoral issues that are difficult for a single ministry to resolve.

However, strong authority also requires clear boundaries.

BRAN and the Challenge of Dividing Authorities

The establishment of BRAN is important to scrutinize because a number of agrarian reform authorities are, in principle, already vested in existing institutions, particularly BPN and sectoral ministries. Accordingly, the key question is not merely what new authorities will be granted to BRAN, but why those authorities need to be placed in a new agency and what cannot be resolved by the institutions that already exist.

In this respect, BRAN can be compared with Danantara. The similarity lies in the same underlying issue: the establishment of a new agency amid the existence of institutions whose authorities overlap.

Therefore, what needs to be tested in the Draft Law is the clarity of the boundaries of BRAN's authority vis-à-vis BPN and sectoral ministries, the legal force of its decisions, the mechanisms for objections and judicial review, and oversight of BRAN itself. If the design is clear, BRAN could address the fragmentation of authority. If not, BRAN risks becoming an additional institutional layer without resolving the longstanding problems.