Agricom.id, JAKARTA – Dean of Faculty of Agriculture, Universitas Brawijaya, Damanhuri did appreciate the progress in agriculture in the third quarter which reached 2,15 percent. He thought that the progress was the special gift for Indonesia which still struggles for recovering the economy nationally because of Covid-19 pandemic.

“In Covid-19 pandemic, agriculture gets better because it is not as bad as others,” he said, Sunday (15/11/2020).

He also mentioned that the agriculture proved to save the economy of our country from the worse situation. The agriculture could be said as the strong base to face the crisis globally that could be happening.

“As long as the referral data is official (from central bureau of statistic (CBS)), we have to believe (it is valid),” he said.

Just like written before, CBS released that the agriculture was positively in progress reaching 2,15 percent in year on year. It happened for the food commodities, such as, palm oil and soybean in the international markets in the third quarter increased both in quarter on quarter and year on year.

Based on the release, 7 sectors for annual business would be positively growing, such as, agriculture, real estate, and health.

Knowing this, Ministry of Agriculture Indonesian Republic (Ministry of Agriculture) keeps supporting the economic progress nationally by increasing every production in agricultural sub sector, namely in the food plantation, such  as, paddy, horticulture, and plantation.

Head of Public Relation and Information, Ministry of Agriculture, Kuntoro Boga Andri said that the increasing happened for the massive crop which ran in many regions, the increasing horticultural sub sector and demands of fruits and vegetables.

“The plantation developed from the import activities, such as, in cocoa, rubber, clove, and tobacco,” he said.

He also mentioned that the increasing has the positive to farmers’ exchange rate and agricultural business exchange rate in the second and third quarter in this year.

He thought that one supporting factor to the achievement was the good absorption of kredit usaha rakyat in agriculture in January to October 2020 which reached more than Rp 45 billion. This was significant compared to the same period in 2019.

“Once again, this proves that agriculture is the pillar of economy nationally,” he said. (A2)