REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, LAMPUNG -- President Joko Widodo harvests coffee with farmers in Kembahang Village, Batubrak District, West Lampung Regency, Lampung Province, on Friday (12/7/2024). During his visit, the President stressed the importance of increasing Indonesia's coffee productivity, which covers an area of about 1.2 million hectares of coffee plantations throughout the country.

“We have 1.2 million hectares of coffee both robusta and arabica throughout Indonesia. In West Lampung, the largest is 60,000 hectares, but indeed, almost 90 percent of it is robusta, arabica is about 10 percent,” Jokowi said in his official statement, which was quoted on Sunday (14/7/2024).

According to the Head of State, although coffee prices fluctuate, but on an annual basis they tend to rise and export demand also continues to increase. For this reason, the President encouraged Agriculture Minister Andi Amran Sulaiman to pay attention to coffee commodities.

“This is what I just told the Minister of Agriculture to pay attention to coffee. The most important thing is that its productivity per hectare should go up,” he explains.

Furthermore, the President revealed the main focus is to increase productivity per hectare, which today is much still at 1-2 tons. It hopes to reach 8-9 tons as in other countries. He insists the target is a joint task. How to make coffee productivity per hectare, increase dramatically.

The president asserted that it could be realized through better care. So is the feeding of his fertilizer. Then the setting of the planting distance.

“The planting distance may be tighter so that the productivity per hectare can be increased even more. And if productivity per hectare rises, the well-being of coffee farmers will be better,” Jokowi said.

The president declared fertilizer subsidies had increased nearly two-fold. This is to support the farmers in increasing production. The number one person in the country took the time to discuss with rice farmers about the fertilizer subdivision.

“So if I ask the farmers who are rice, yesterday in these two weeks, there is no problem,” he said, adding.

President Jokowi is pushing downstream agricultural products, including coffee. According to him, this includes good packaging and ready for export, not just selling in the form of raw materials. The visit is expected to be a momentum for the improvement of the coffee farming sector in Indonesia. Especially in West Lampung Regency, and at the same time strengthen the well-being of coffee farmers in the future.

Currently, the price of coffee commodities is around IDR 70 thousand per kilogram in dry or green bean form. The average coffee productivity of farmers reaches three to four tons per hectare. This is according to data from the Ministry of Agriculture.

Agriculture Minister Andi Amran Sulaiman said the national coffee acreage in 2023 will reach 1,268,905 hectares. Its average production stands at 756,097 tonnes or the world's fourth largest and accounts for six percent of the world's coffee. Mentan said Indonesia produces 91 percent of robusta coffee and nine percent of Arabica coffee, with export values in 2020-2022 rising by $326,451, or 40 percent, from $821,932 to $1,148,383. Export volumes rose by 58,201 tonnes or 15 per cent, from 379,354 tonnes to 437,555 tonnes.

Especially in the province of Lampung, it currently ranks as the second largest national coffee production with a plantation area of 155,165 hectares or 108,069 tons. It was predominantly robusta coffee. “What is interesting is that West Lampung coffee farmers mostly apply shoot connection technology to Robusta coffee cultivation and produce a productivity of 1.1 tons per hectare or above the national average productivity of 0.813 tons per hectare,” Mentan said in a press release.

As already mentioned above, the Ministry of Agriculture and various related stakeholders have an important task. The Ministry is required to pay more attention to coffee commodities for the purpose of increasing productivity.

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