Experts of the industry
circles agreed that seed nursery business must be developed to step up
competitiveness of horticulture products in the market, at home or abroad.
Benny Kusbini, Chairman of the Indonesian Council of Horticulture stated in
Jakarta on Tuesday [22/7] that low investment in horticulture would cause
overseas horticulture products to invade Indonesia to kill the local farmers.
For information, today the Constitutional Court was testing Law no 13/2010 on
Horticulture, especially Article 100 which restricted foreign investment to
30%.
Benny stated that Indonesia’s horticulture products was
still way behind compared to Thailand, unless there were effort to improve, it
was feared that Indonesia would be merley market for other countries. According
to Benny, the Law of Horticulture had accommodated all farmer’s demand. However
there was a crucial point in Article 100 on restriction for foreign investment
at only 30%. If this Article was put in effect, he said, seed producers would
relocate their business abroad which would disadvantage millions of
horticulture farmers who relied on premium variety.
Due to weak competitive edge, Benny saw that is was hard
for Indonesia to be independent from imported products especially agricultural
and horticulture products. Other problem was low production due to anomalous
weather. Besides agriculture system in Indonesia was still inferior which was
why production was low. This was because Indonesia had no command over advanced
agro-technology. It seemed that the Bogor Institute of Agriculture [IPB] was
not doing their role to the maximum while even infra structure and seed were
not sufficient.
Benny disclosed that many other countries were flood like
Indonesia, but since their system was good they were able to minimize the flood
effect. Benny pled the Government to seriously reform agriculture.
About import, Benny reminded the Government that issuing
permit for agriculture importing, the Government check up people’s demand first
so there would be no distortion and conflicting interest between the product
imported and the product produced by local farmers, although the consumers
retained their right to buy imported horticulture products.
The way it had been, Indonesia horticulture products was
uncompetitive because the Five ‘P’ of Marketing: Product, Packaging, Pricing,
and Promotion was not well executed. To illustrate horticulture product
produced in Thailand an Japan were also produced at home. The potencial product
were : salak palm fruit, mangostene, jackfruit, starfruit, watermelon, mango
and guava. Benny said that if demand for horticulture products at home
increased, importers. Imports would glance at the product.
Meanwhile the Government estimated the volume of imported
horticulture this year was more than 6000,000 tons, an increase of 50% against
last year which was only 400,000 tons. However the Director General of Trading
of the Ministry of Trade, Bachruil Chairi was pessimistic that import could
fulfill all of the indicative demand of 800,000 tons. By end of Semester
I/2014, Bachrul mentioned that there were only 23 out of 151 importers who could realize 80% of the permitted amount. By the
rule, importers who did not fulfill threshold would not be given anymore permit
to import. He projected that import realization in Semester II/2 would be
slightly above 300,000 tons, an increase of 5% - 10% against previous semester.(SS)
Business New - July 25, 2014
No comments:
Post a Comment