OJK NTB Designates Cocoa as Priority Commodity for Economic Development

The Financial Services Authority (OJK) of West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) Province has designated cocoa as a priority commodity to drive regional economic growth while improving the welfare of local farmers. “We have designated cocoa as a priority commodity because it has great potential to increase farmers’ incomes and regional economic growth,” said Head of OJK NTB Rudi Sulistyo in a statement in Mataram on Sunday. Rudi stated that the selection of cocoa as a priority commodity was based on the still wide-open business development opportunities in the West Nusa Tenggara region. West Nusa Tenggara began developing cocoa commodities through the Regional Agricultural Development and Extension Project (P4D) around the 1980s. Some of NTB’s superior cocoa varieties include Ijo Kajuman, Beneng Jomot, and Inderti DM01. OJK has coordinated with various stakeholders, including cocoa farmer groups in North Lombok, to help build a sustainable plantation business ecosystem. OJK has mapped out various key needs that remain challenges, ranging from access to financing and market certainty to business protection for cocoa farmers. In fact, some farmers still face limited access to financing for farming business development and require companies to absorb their production output so that the cocoa supply chain is more secure. Rudy assessed that farmers’ understanding of the benefits of insurance is still relatively low. Yet, insurance protection is very important to mitigate the risk of crop failure or production disruptions that could affect business sustainability.