RI Strives To Become A Red Onion Producer In The Global Market

JAKARTA - Head of the National Food Agency (Bapanas) Arief Prasetyo Adi revealed that Indonesia continues to strive to become a food producer in the global market, one of which is the shallot commodity.

Arief said that shallots as one of the commodities exported from Indonesia to Malaysia and other countries showed the great potential for national food exports to supply global needs.

"This is our hope that Indonesia can become a world food producer," said Arief quoting Antara.

He explained that food exports were carried out when domestic food needs were able to be supplied from domestic production.

Arief revealed that the government encourages the potential and resources of Indonesian food products to increase and fill market needs that are not only domestic, but can also penetrate the international market.

"Today we continue to encourage food commodities whose domestic production is indeed a surplus so that they can expand and meet the needs of the international market," Arief said in a statement received in Jakarta.

Furthermore, he said that the spirit to build Indonesia as a food producer in the world is in line with the commitment of the elected president Prabowo Subianto to realize food self-sufficiency again.

"The slowest is four years after (Prabowo Subianto) is sworn in (as President of the Republic of Indonesia) on October 20," said Arief.

He mentioned that based on data from the Ministry of Agriculture for the 2019-2023 period, Indonesia as an exporter of onions ranks 33rd in the global scope. The average export value of 2019-2023 is 9.46 million US dollars per year.

"This is an impressive increase of 44.87 percent compared to the 2017-2021 period, which at that time Indonesia was still in 35th place with an average of 6.53 million US dollars per year," he explained.

Furthermore, according to the national food balance projected by Bapanas, Indonesia is a country that produces shallots with annual production capable of reaching 1.35 million tons.

"Meanwhile, the consumption requirement in a year is 1.16 million tons. This means that there is still a surplus of around 186 thousand tons," said Arief.

In 2023 Indonesia has 3.5 million agricultural households that rely on horticulture as the main business. Vegetable commodities are still the flagship horticulture, including shallots, large chilies, cayenne peppers, cabbage, potatoes and tomatoes.

"This refers to 2023, shallots are the largest contributor to the vegetable category with a contribution of up to 13.59 percent," he said.

With that, shallots have become horticultural commodities that have export potential, including to Southeast Asia.

Thailand is the Southeast Asian country with the most exports of shallots from Indonesia of 6 thousand tons with a transaction value of 8 million US dollars in 2023.

Meanwhile, Indonesia's exports of shallots to Malaysia continue to experience progressive escalation. In 2021, the number is still at 59.6 tons. Then it continued to increase until it increased to 10 times or 612.8 tons as of 2023.

Meanwhile, based on the release of the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), regarding the Exchange Rate of Horticulture Farmers (NTPH), since February 2022, the Indonesian Government has consistently maintained that NTPH is always more than 100 points.

In September 2024, NTPH was at 108.46 and was still higher than September 2023 which was 106.20.

Meanwhile, when viewed in the price index received by vegetable farmers, including shallots, in September it was 135.02. This is considered still quite good compared to September the previous year which was at 127.94.