Indonesian fruit industry stranger to science and technology

Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

A failure to apply science and technology has hampered the development of the Indonesian fruit industry, and left it incapable of meeting domestic and international demand.

An official at the Ministry of Agriculture said that compared to growers in the world's main fruit producing countries, such as Thailand, fruit growers in Indonesia were still very much dependent on climate. As a consequence, the fruit they produce fails to meet quality standards.

"Most of our farmers rely on the weather in planning their planting programs. There is abundant supply of one or two kinds of fruit in a good season but there nothing in bad times," Agricultural Output Processing and Marketing Director Nyoman Oka Tridajaja said.

He told The Jakarta Post that countries such as Thailand, the Canary Islands and Spain, three of the world's main fruit suppliers, had managed to overcome such climate dependency by using technology.

"The result is a standardized fruit output, which is available in all seasons. Moreover, they can process the fruit into higher value-added products by drying and canning it," said Nyoman.

He added that so far only a few big companies in Indonesia, which had the capital and technology, were interested in the fruit business, while most of players were traditional farmers who were dependent on the weather.

"Many companies think the fruit business needs a huge amount of capital and is a high-risk business. However, if they follow the paths of successful fruit-growing countries, they will reap great rewards as Indonesia has a greater potential in this business," Nyoman argued.

According to ministry data, national fruit output stands at approximately 11,500,000 tons annually, while domestic consumption averages around 11,700,000 tons per year. Indonesia imports an average of 300,000 tons and exports an average of 200,000 tons annually.

Each Indonesian consumes around 40 kilograms of fruit per year, well below the minimum "healthy" level of 67 kilograms per year set by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). In order to meet the FAO standard, Indonesia would need to jack up its fruit output to around 15 million tons per year.

The government has running a number of programs to help growers overcome their problems since 1997. It has collaborated with Japan, Australia and the Netherlands in pioneering programs to enhance the quality of locally-produced fruit in 15 provinces nationwide. The programs have involved the building of dams, and quality control initiatives.

"We hope that we will be able to fully meet local demand in three years by raising production by between 6 percent and 7 percent a year," said Nyoman.

He said the programs had been successful so far, as evidenced by the rise in the country's fruit exports over the past two years.

Fresh and dried fruit exports

Jan-Oct. 2002 Jan-Oct. 2003 percentage increase

volume (tons) 174,043,252 205,376,213 18

value ($US) 82,637,430 112,013,422 35.55

Source: BPS