Downstream Agriculture Must Apply The Principles Of Sustainability

JAKARTA - Downstreaming of agriculture, including in Bali, is important to apply the principle of sustainability to provide greater added value and expand employment opportunities.

"Don't look at its sustainability as a cost because it has proven that it is a source of growth," said senior economist from the Institute for Development of Economics and Finance (Indef) Dradjad Hari Wibowo quoting Antara.

He explained that there are three principles of sustainability that not only meet domestic needs but also requirements to be accepted in international markets, namely sustainable production, social and ecological or environmental.

Dradjad added that production sustainability is related to the economy, then social sustainability by involving community participation including no gender discrimination and ecological sustainability by not damaging nature or the environment.

Meanwhile, in Bali agricultural products in a broad sense include fisheries, plantation products to handicrafts in the form of wood carvings. These agricultural products can produce added value through the downstream process.

With the three principles of sustainability, it is also hoped that it will preserve water sources in Bali considering that the island is a tourist destination.

"Turis needs water, if Bali does not preserve water, people will not want to go to Bali for a long time because of lack of water. Not to mention the water for the needs of the population," he said.

He gave an example of a layered wood product that does not preserve downstream so that it does not have a significant impact on the socio-economic community.

Likewise, the oil and gas sector, he said, which is still imported, one of which is from Singapore encourages the loss of great economic potential if there is no downstreaming.

"We have to import (BBM) from Singapore because we don't make good ticketing, so the losses are very long. So we have to do downstreaming," he said.

Meanwhile, based on data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) of Bali Province, the export value of goods from Bali in the January-July 2024 period reached 375 million US dollars, an increase of 12.90 percent compared to the same period in 2023 which reached 332 million US dollars.

The United States is the largest share of the export market with a portion reaching 27 percent of the total cumulative value of exports.

The export portion in January-July 2024 was dominated by exports of processing industry products of 91 percent or 341.8 million US dollars, the remaining 8 percent were agriculture and another 0.06 percent were mining product exports.

There is also a contribution of commodities exported from Bali in July 2024, which is 24 percent of fish, crustaceans (edang) and moluska (silver to squid) with a value of 12.3 million US dollars.

The rest export clothes and accessories, metals, start and jewelry, furniture, lights and lighting, wood and items made of wood, paper, cardboard, knitted clothes, and woven goods.