Ministry of Agriculture Reports 377,000 Hectares of Indonesia's Coconut Plantations Are Old and Damaged

Jakarta (ANTARA) - The Ministry of Agriculture (Kementan) has recorded around 377,000 hectares of the national coconut plantations as being in the category of old and damaged plants, making this one of the challenges in improving the productivity of the commodity.

Agus Rosyid, Quality Supervisor for Agricultural Products at the Directorate General of Plantations at the Ministry of Agriculture, said that the extensive area of old and damaged plants means national coconut productivity remains suboptimal, even though Indonesia has a vast area of coconut plantations.

“Old and damaged plants currently account for some 377,000 hectares out of a total of around 3.2 million hectares of national coconut plantations,” Agus said during a discussion on coconut downstreaming development in Jakarta on Wednesday.

According to him, national coconut productivity currently sits at around 1.1 tonnes per hectare per year, far below the potential of 3.5 to 5 tonnes per hectare if superior seedlings were used and good cultivation practices applied.

“Because prices tend to be low, farmers are reluctant to carry out maintenance, and perhaps they also cannot afford fertiliser and so on. In the end, coconuts are only harvested, but maintenance is less than optimal,” he said.

He added that this situation has also led some farmers to switch to other commodities considered more economically promising, such as oil palm, which has more stable prices.

In fact, according to Agus, coconut holds great potential for development, as global market demand for processed coconut products continues to rise.