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View all search resultsSeed shortage jeopardizes cacao replanting effort
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A farmer dries cacao beans on Jan. 18, 2022, in his backyard in Toabo village, Mamuju regency, West Sulawesi. The province is among the country’s main cacao cultivation regions. (Antara/Akbar Tado)
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wathes of Indonesian cacao plantations need replanting to boost production, but a shortage of seeds could jeopardize the effort to replace old, unproductive trees.
Adi Sucipto, an official from the Plantation Fund Management Agency (BPDP), one of the government institutions involved in the cacao rejuvenation, told reporters in a media briefing in Bali that his body currently only had enough seeds to replant 5,000 hectares nationwide, and that actual rejuvenation next year “might just reach 1,200 ha”.
That is a drop in the ocean against the Agriculture Ministry’s target to replant 175,000 ha next year, which would rejuvenate more than half of the 280,000 ha of unproductive plantations nationwide.
The ministry’s interim plantation director general, Abdul Roni Angkat, did not respond to The Jakarta Post’s inquiries.
While Indonesian Cacao Council (Dekaindo) chairman Soetanto Abdoellah told the Post on Tuesday that the ministry’s directorate general had access to enough seeds for replanting some 180,000 ha of cacao plantations, that may not all become available next year.
Adi said there were too few cacao nurseries, where seeds are germinated and seedlings are raised until they are ready for permanent planting. The problem was not the body’s lack of financial firepower, but rather the fact that its room for maneuver was limited by regulations.
Adi explained that, since the Agriculture Ministry had yet to issue a comprehensive regulation on the BPDP’s scope of work, it remained unclear whether the body could shell out funds to develop more cacao nurseries.
