Bali Earns US$1Million from People`s Plantations

Denpasar (Antara Bali) - Bali earned more than US$1 million from exports of commodities from peoples plantations in the past five months from January to May this year, up from only US$442,000 in the same period before, a local trade official said.

"The big earnings was made following increasing exports of cocoa to mainly the US," head of the regional plantation service, I Dewa Made said here on Sunday.

Cocoa is a new commodity for Bali but earnings from its export have surpassed that of coffee which has so far been the islands traditional export commodity.

From January to May the islands exports of cocoa reached 67 tons worth US586,708 while coffee exports were recorded at only 66 tons worth US$426,580 and vanilla 69 kilograms worth US$2,415.

He hoped the increasing exports would further motivate farmers to manage their plantations well to assure production of good quality cocoa.

Dewa Made said that cocoa from Bali had just entered the export markets especially the US, Australia and Germany and so the amount was still small or still in the dozen tons a month.

He said there are three main regions in the island where farmers are developing cocoa plantations namely Tabanan covering 5,063 hectares, Buleleng 1,258 hectares and Jembrana 3,555 hectares, in addition to plantations in Badung, Klungkung, Bangli and Karangasem.

The price of the commodity at the farmer level has been stable at Rp36,700 per kilogram for the fermented product and Rp34,200 per kilogram for the raw product. The price is quite encouraging for the farmers, he said.(WDY)