Coffee From Pagaralam, South Sumatra, Ready For Export

PHOTO VIA BETWEEN

PALEMBANG - Coffee from Pagaralam City, South Sumatra, is ready to be exported to a number of countries to take up the premium product market segment by local cooperative business units.

Chairman of the Indonesian Agribusiness and Agro-Industrial Society (MAI) Pagaralam Branch, Nisdiarti, in the workshop said that his party which manages the Pagaralam Mandiri Cooperative is preparing for the export process with the help of PT Pusri's subsidiary, PT Pusri Agro Lestari.

Reported by Antara, Tuesday, April 12, through this escort from the Pusri subsidiary, the farmers are escorted in the process from upstream to downstream, including the use of fertilizers to efforts to overcome weeds and pests.

Currently, his party is also getting assistance from export facilitation from the Ministry of Trade related to licensing prerequisites.

Then, the cooperative management is also taking care of the legalization of the implementation of the warehouse receipt system to the Commodity Futures Trading Supervisory Agency (CoFTRA) so that farmers are more competitive.

The problem now lies in the export capacity which is still relatively small if it is through the gates of Boom Baru Port, Palembang.

The port authority is only able to provide a capacity of 5 tons, while the coffee production that can be produced by farmers far exceeds that capacity.

According to him, this problem can be solved as long as there is collaboration between farmers and related agencies so that Pagaralam coffee can be known in the international market.

So far, most of Pagaralam's coffee has been exported through the port of Panjang, Lampung, so the 'brand' has sunk into Lampung Coffee.

He said the desire to raise Pagaralam coffee had actually been echoed by local farmers for a long time.

However, this effort is not easy because the upstream process is still not standardized (coffee is careless because it applies rainbow picking) so that inevitably farmers are forced to sell to collectors, most of whom use Lampung Panjang Port.

However, now Pagaralam coffee farmers are starting to gradually apply red picking in order to penetrate the export market for premium products.

Meanwhile, Assistant I of the Pagaralam City Government said that there were various problems in the coffee plantation sector.

The government is trying to cooperate with many parties to raise this Pagaralam coffee so that it can be promoted, so that it can penetrate the export market.

Currently, the productivity of coffee plantations in Pagaralam is still relatively low at an average of 900 kilograms per hectare per year or has not reached one ton per hectare. Meanwhile, competing countries such as Vietnam, which has now reached three tons per hectare per year.

“Currently there are already exporting activities, but still in small portions. In the future, we will encourage export volume to be increased again," he said.