Jakarta (ANTARA) - Agriculture Minister Andi Amran Sulaiman stated that the government's plantation and horticulture development program will create 1.6 million jobs in two years.In a press conference at the Presidential Palace Complex, here on Thursday, he noted that the program is carried out by optimizing a budget of Rp9.95 trillion (around US$600 million).
The budget will be used mainly for the provision of free seeds and seedlings to farmers under the program, which covers the development of commodities like cocoa, coffee, coconut, cashew, and nutmeg with a total area of 800 thousand hectares.
Speaking after attending a limited meeting chaired by President Prabowo Subianto, he affirmed that the government continues to strengthen the downstreaming agenda in the agriculture sector as a strategic step to increase the added value of products, create jobs, and accelerate equitable welfare.
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On that occasion, the minister underlined that the economic potential from coconut downstreaming is enormous, noting that processing coconut into virgin coconut oil can boost the price by up to 100 times.
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In addition to coconut, the government is also preparing downstreaming for gambier (Uncaria gambir), given Indonesia's position as a country that supplies 80 percent of the world's gambier needs.
The same approach is also taken for the palm oil commodity, which, according to him, will be processed into products like biofuel, cooking oil, and margarine.
