City vows to keep Ragunan orchid park
JAKARTA (JP): The city administration has vowed to retain the only orchid park it owns in Ragunan, South Jakarta, in an effort to keep its green campaign alive, a deputy governor says.
R.S. Museno, deputy governor on social affairs, said over the weekend that the administration will not eliminate green areas to make way for high-rise buildings. "Therefore, this five-hectare orchid park must be preserved as part of the city's green areas," Museno said while opening the Orchid Park Promotion Week in Ragunan on Saturday.
The promotion week, which ends on May 19, consists of a seminar, orchid arrangement contest, orchid cultivation presentation and orchid bazaar. All activities are being held at the orchid park in Ragunan.
The park, established in 1973, will also function as an orchid development center, where new types of orchids are seeded and people are trained to plant and care for orchids correctly, Museno said. "In this way, the park is expected to play a role in orchid exports."
The head of the city agriculture agency, Ruchiyat Padmakusumah, said on Saturday that most orchid farmers at the park are still facing several hurdles in terms of export competition with other countries, including Thailand.
"Most of the farmers cannot consistently produce a large number of good quality orchids," he said.
He explained that the only way to produce a mass quantity of orchids is through tissue culture technology. He said his office is beginning to introduce the technology to the farmers.
The April 17, 1995 edition of Indonesia Business Weekly indicated that -- from 1991 to 1994 -- Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan and Saudi Arabia were constant buyers of Indonesian orchids.
Since 1993, Japan and Saudi Arabia have not made any further purchases of Indonesian orchids. In 1993 and 1994, Singapore bought 526.8 tons of orchids from Indonesia and Hong Kong bought 367.4 tons.
Poorly promoted
Ruchiyat said his office is also helping the farmers with different types of training, including improving their skills in creating new types of orchids.
However, Ruchiyat said only a few Jakartans know about the park and its facilities, due to a lack of promotion.
"This initial promotion activity is aimed at making those orchid lovers and those interested in planting the flower aware of the park's existence," Ruchiyat said.
The park is part of Pasar Minggu's agro-tourism center. The other sources of interest are the Ragunan zoo, a horticulture seed plantation, a Ciganjur fruit plantation, a fishery center and Babakan lake, all of which can attract tourists from other provinces or countries.
The orchid park is divided into 40 plots for the farmers, who each rent a 1,000 square-meter area. The farmers are only charged Rp 25,000 (US$10.86) in monthly rental fees by the administration.
"Most of them are small-scale orchid farmers and we are helping them to develop their business," Ruchiyat said, adding that there are more than 100 types of orchids in the park.
The flower's price ranges from Rp 400 to Rp 40,000 each. (yns)