These and other factors combined to redirect transmigration so that it continued to fulfil its fundamental mission offering the poor, the landless and the unemployed an opportunity to improve their lot through a program providing a future for them and their children, while assisting Indonesia’s development.

Slowing the number of participants, transmigration expanded on existing programs that encouraged families to move to newly opened areas on their own. These "spontaneous transmigrants" received the same benefits of sponsored transmigrants, except that the Government did not pay their transportation costs.

A major effort was undertaken to identify settlements where certain transmigrants were not benefiting from their move and special help was provided to repair problems and ensure the vitality of certain villages. An outgrowth of this process of raising the quality of settlements known as "second-stage development" led to decisions that put less emphasis on rice production and more on diversifying into increased commercial projects such as cash crops, livestock breeding, poultry farming, shrimp farming, and coffee, palm oil and rubber plantations.

Shrimp farms and other aquaculture could succeed in swampy areas, and tree crops could flourish in semi-arid and thin soils where rice cultivation was not successful. Cash crops would not only contribute to Indonesia’s overall food supply, but would produce agricultural products for export. In turn, processing this food would bring new commercial ventures in the form of food processing plants. Timber farms and even tourist destinations were also part of this plan for diversification.