The Indonesian Produce Business
Business of fruits and vegetables (Produce Business) is an industry that must be managed in an integrated and cross-sectoral in order to develop it properly. "Produce business will become the present or future Indonesia’s competitiveness if they are well-managed," said Produce Business Practitioner, Mr. Budiharjo, in the Stadium Generale for Alumni of Department of Industrial Technology of Agriculture, Faculty of Agricultural Technology, Bogor Agricultural University (Dept. TIN-FATETA – IPB), on Wednesday, 6 June 2012, at Darmaga campus.
As Indonesia is endowed with soil fertility and a great wealth of biodiversity. The successful management of the produce business as an industry (agro-industry) is expected to be one of the solution to reduce unemployment, increase farmers’ income and urbanization pressure.
According to Budiharjo, who is also Alumni of the Dept. TIN-FATETA – IPB, the reduction of the importation of horticultural commodities (fruits and vegetables) will occur by itself, if the substitute products are available and meet the desired criteria of consumers. The increasing of growth rate of consumption for local fruits which is greater than consumption of imported fruits will reduce the importation of horticultural commodities. "Be sure, to produce quality products coupled with the effective marketing programs, they will be much more effective in increasing the growth rate of consumption for local fruits, without hindering the stability of the marketing ‘Produce business’ that applicable atg present," said the salak fruit exporter.
The management of ‘Produce business’ should exploit the local potential and capabilities of Human Resources (HR) in an optimal and mutual support among business people. Development programs for fruits and vegetables should be well-integrated and should not be implemented partiallly or individually between business actors.
By observing the condition of ‘Produce business’ nowadays, Budiharjo said, they should be evaluated together because of the relationship between businessmen of ‘Produce business’ mostly are simply transactional, so that the values, ethics and commitment are often overlooked. On such pattern of relationships there will be the superior party against the other parties which usually the ‘producers’ (farmers) who are positioned to parties mostly the injured by the relationships, or vice versa.
In addition, the limited capability of the businessmen of ‘produce business’ has effected that they rarely carry out specific measurements for fruit and vegetable products marketing as the basis for business development. Urgency of competitiveness between actors of “Produce Business” with the importers is responded by a number of regulations that are still questionable for its effectiveness. "The failure of the implementation of a regulation is not just a failure of achievement of objectives, but also affects the stability of the ‘Produce business’ which actually harms consumers Indonesia," said Budiharjo. This special event was attended by students as well as Lecturer of the Dept. TIN-FATETA – IPB, the moderator for event was Dr. Aji Hermawan. (Wied).
