T

he association of pesticide producers, CropLife Indonesia, expects a further increase in pesticide demand in Indonesia thanks to the government'€™s intensified program of improving farming productivity in the country.

CropLife Indonesia chairman Midzon Johannis said the group estimated there would be at least a 5 percent increase in pesticide sales in Indonesia this year. '€œThe Agriculture Ministry has many programs to boost production so there will be more plants to protect and they need more pesticide,'€ he told The Jakarta Post on the sidelines of a press conference in Jakarta on Tuesday.

This year the ministry has launched aggressive targets compared to last year. Rice field expansion, for example, is aimed at 200,000 hectares (ha), a 1,000 percent leap from 20,000 ha of new rice fields targeted last year.

To boost productivity, it has also signed Rp 4.6 trillion (US$338 million) worth of contracts to buy agriculture equipment and Rp 30 trillion of subsidized fertilizer in January, according earlier media reports.

Midzon said that to boost sales of pesticides, the association would not only focus on direct marketing of the products but also educating farmers on the right methods of using pesticides, which would lead to effective results and maintain farmers'€™ trust in pesticides.

In 2001, the organization launched the '€œStewardship Program'€, through which its members jointly fund experts in the field to train farmers on how to use pesticides properly every year.

Dadang, a toxicologist from the Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB) said many farmers in Indonesia still misused pesticides due to a lack of education. He noted at least 23 mistakes that farmers made, including erroneous dosages, mixtures, spray timing, parts of plants that needed to be sprayed, handling of chemicals, the re-use of containers and broken sprayers.

'€œThese mistakes threaten farmers'€™ health, waste pesticide, have ineffective results and reduce plants'€™ resistance to some diseases and insects,'€ he said at the same event.

According to CropLife Indonesia, developing a new product, when a currently available product is no longer effective, costs about $100 million, with 10 to 15 years of research and development.

The data also show that 100,000 pathogens or infectious organisms and tens of thousands of nematodes or roundworms threaten agricultural products.

The use of pesticides, though considered the last option in plant protection under the Crop System Law, was inevitable in practice and had increased harvests by 40 percent, Midzon said.

Stewardship Program manager Dedi Triadi said that every year, the body focused on different regions, including those outside its company members'€™ customers'€™ areas. CropLife Indonesia'€™s members are BASF, Bayer CropScience, Dow AgroSciences, DuPont, FMC, Monsanto, NuFarm and Syngenta.

This year, the organization will focus on training cacao farmers in Sulawesi; vegetable, chili and tomato farmers in several highland areas in East Java; and onion farmers in Probolinggo, East Java.

Every year, the program embraces about 1.1 million farmers, a relatively small proportion of the country'€™s 26 million farmers. '€œHence, we are now approaching other companies and the government to integrate efforts in the program to achieve more effective results,'€ Dedi said.

Besides CropLife Indonesia, other companies have also conducted independent training for farmers in chemical handling. The government also provides training through the Community Empowerment Body (LPM) at the village or sub-district level. (rbk)