Agricom.id, JAKARTA – Ministry of Agriculture focused to develop the integrated soybean from the upstream to downstream sectors. To arrange the strategy, General Directorate of Food Plantation, Ministry of Agriculture did focus group discussion (FGD) to discuss it with the experts and formulate the development strategies of soybean in the future, Thursday (16/7/2020) as in the official statement to Agricom.id.

According to General Director of Food Plantation, Ministry of Agriculture, Suwandi, soybean is one main food plantation which hits the production issue because it could not fulfill the needs yet. So it needs the stakeholders’ roles intensively to boost the glory of soybean in Indonesia.

For information, the soybean needs for one year could be 90% of the total production to produce tempeh, tofu; 5% to produce soy sauce, yoghurt, and other kinds of food. The certified soybean seeds are limited still and mostly in Java within short expired time (about four months). Besides, the decreasing competition with other kinds of food commodities, such as, paddy and corn might be the other issue. This is our work to develop the local soybean together.

“It needs to develop the seeds within more than 3 tons per hectare – productivity. The keys are in the seed and price. Every superior seed in the development and research (agency) should be distributed to increase the production,” he said in the FGD.

He also explained that the downstream is the important thing to notice when developing soybean to get the best price. It also needs partnership between the farmers and the industries to get the certain markets and advantage kredit usaha rakyat (KUR), so that the farmers would not depend on the government’s helps.

“We have limits to help. It is the time for us to encourage the farmers to get the financial access. It is easy to get and in low interest rate,” he said.

“The formulation system to sell one product is something to notice to introduce the local product. Ministry of agriculture is committed to soybean. It was shown by Minister of Agriculture, Syahrul Yasin Limpo (SYL) some time ago by planning the soybean planting in North Sulawesi,” he mentioned.

Meanwhile, Prof. Munif, an expert joining the FGD told that the successful key to soybean cultivation is the harvest price. For example, the black soybean cultivation hits the best price and makes the farmers happy to develop it.

“For it is about Rp 7000 per kilogram, the farmers do their best to develop it without help intervention,” he said.

In the same occasion, Prof. Sumarno suggested about the soybean plantation by saying that the government’s intervention for the help program should be given to those who just planted it. He did not deny that it needs to import soybean still. But he suggested that the soybean importers should develop the farmers in our country and purchase their production.

“The strategy turns to the processed products. If it is cheap, it should be twice more expensive to increase the basic price,” he said.

The representative of Gabungan Koperasi Tahu Tempe Indonesia (GAKOPTI), Aip Syarifuddin said that it is better for the government to determine the standards of soybean, and the management of its post-harvest. It is admitted that the local soybean could not compete with the import one because the imported is cheaper and looks nice.

“I believe that we have better quality. So it needs to manage the soybean governance, such as, the importers that import soybean should be more than 5 years doing imports within good predicates, empower the local farmers to increase the production in the domestic regularly, the government should arrange the quote of imports. In GAKOPTI, we are ready to develop our local soybean,” he said.

Special Staff of West Sulawesi Governor, Ramdhan said that the governor is really enthusiastic to develop soybean because many regions develop it in the province, such as, in Mamuju, Polman, Mamuju Tengah covering about 46.000 hectares (ha).

“The farmers in West Sulawesi are mostly homesteaders. They have many experiences to develop soybean. It is better if the soybean is developed in the new areas so that the new planting gets more. It is planned that the planting would cover 500 hectares next week,” he said. (A2)