Government to Boost Cassava Production

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The government will increase cassava production in 2015-2019 from 18-20 tons per hectare to 30-40 tons per hectare.

"In the Agriculture Ministry’s strategic plan for 2015-2019, we set cassava as a commodity that will be accelerated nationally," said Pending Dadih Permana, director of Post Harvest Crops at the Ministry of Agriculture, yesterday.

According to Dadih, production has to be increased so that Indonesia does not need to import cassavas to meet the needs of domestic industry. "Naturally we also plan specific supports for cassava-based food industry development."

Those supports include the ease of doing business and opening new land. Cassava farmers have been facing difficulties in land ownership despite potential land reaching 193 million hectares. "That consists of wetland of 8.3 million hectares, large dry land and suboptimal land," he said.

Suboptimal land in South Sumatra has even been developed to plant elephant cassava seeds from East Kalimantan. "There are around 100 hectares of land there that will keep developing," said Dadih.

The government will also fix cassava trade value chain efficiency by building healthy system and competition. "We will also monitor the price of cassava products in the market," Dadih added.

The most important thing is the control of import as Indonesia will only import if domestic supply is lacking. "We hope we won’t [have to] import."

AYU PRIMA SANDI