Agriculture Minister promotes organic farming

Jakarta, InfoPublik - Agriculture Minister Amran Sulaiman stated that his office would promote the organic agriculture product development in Indonesia. This product is expected to bring huge profit for farmers since it has  high selling price.

Minister Amran said earlier this month, Indonesia had successfully exported organic rice to Belgium. The organic rice was coming from Tasikmalaya and had total valued around EUR6 or around Rp90,000 per kilogram—with estimated currency exchange rate Rp14,700 per EUR1.

"We exported to Belgium with  price of EUR6 or Rp90,000 per kilogram. This is an expensive price. There are 40 tonnes of organic rice from Tasikmalaya. It comes from organic seed with organic fertilizers," he said in a Coordination Meeting on Food for Regencies/Cities in Border Areas at Agriculture Ministry’s office in Jakarta, Friday (9/16).

Mr. Amran said that besides Belgium, Indonesia’s organic farming products had also penetrated other countries such as the US, Italy, Malaysia, and Singapore. If this product can continue to be developed in the country, there will be more countries that could be targeted as export destination, he said.

"The product have penetrated the US, Belgium, Italy, Malaysia, and Singapore markets. Do not develop [agriculture] without organic farming," he said.

For the development of agriculture, he continued, his  office had targeted the opening of organic farm fields reaching 100,000 hectares per year. Therefore, it is expected more and more farmers can get benefit from organic plant.

"We will open 100,000 hectares of land per year for organic rice. If we can harvest it twice  a year, it will generate Rp90 trillion, while ordinary rice can generate Rp120 trillion per year. Thus, this organic rice will reach 15 million hectares of our agriculture land," he asserted. (Translator: Sugiarti)