VP asks Brebes District to raise onion production
Brebes, Central Java (ANTARA News) - Vice President Jusuf Kalla has asked the Brebes district administration in Central Java to increase onion production by up to 50 percent to help the country reduce its imports of the commodity.
"I have asked the district head to boost onion production by up to 50 percent," Kalla said at the end of a working visit to the district on Sunday.
Onion imports would soon be reduced or stopped if the district managed to increase its onion production, he said in a dialog with onion growers at Jatibarang village in Brebes.
During the dialog, the onion growers expressed readiness to increase their production but lack of water remained an obstacle.
"We still have a problem with water," one of the onion growers said.
Brebes district head Indra Kusuma said he had proposed improvement of the Malahayu dam to overcome the water shortages.
"The dam used to irrigate 46,000 hectares of onion fields in seven subdistricts but now it only irrigated onion fields in two subsitricts," he said.
To increase the onion output, the district had been cooperating with a number of higher learning institutes including the Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB) and the Yogyakarta-based Gadjah Mada University (UGM) in producing high-yielding onion seeds, he said.
Every hectare of onion crops needed an average of 1.2 tons of high-yielding seedlings 40 percent of which still had to be imported from the Philippines, he said.
Brebes has been supplying 30-35 percent of the country`s needs for onion. (*)
"I have asked the district head to boost onion production by up to 50 percent," Kalla said at the end of a working visit to the district on Sunday.
Onion imports would soon be reduced or stopped if the district managed to increase its onion production, he said in a dialog with onion growers at Jatibarang village in Brebes.
During the dialog, the onion growers expressed readiness to increase their production but lack of water remained an obstacle.
"We still have a problem with water," one of the onion growers said.
Brebes district head Indra Kusuma said he had proposed improvement of the Malahayu dam to overcome the water shortages.
"The dam used to irrigate 46,000 hectares of onion fields in seven subdistricts but now it only irrigated onion fields in two subsitricts," he said.
To increase the onion output, the district had been cooperating with a number of higher learning institutes including the Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB) and the Yogyakarta-based Gadjah Mada University (UGM) in producing high-yielding onion seeds, he said.
Every hectare of onion crops needed an average of 1.2 tons of high-yielding seedlings 40 percent of which still had to be imported from the Philippines, he said.
Brebes has been supplying 30-35 percent of the country`s needs for onion. (*)