Indonesia sees cocoa output rising 7 percent

Indonesia's cocoa output is expected to rise as much as 7 percent in 2007 from a year ago as the nation boosts yields through better farm management, a top industry official said on Monday.
Production is forecast to jump to 620,000 tonnes this year from an estimated 580,000 tonnes produced in 2006, Helium Razak, the chairman of the Indonesia Cocoa Association said.
Indonesia is the world's third largest cocoa producer. "We are becoming more aggressive to ensure that our farmers follow good agriculture practices," he told Reuters in an interview. "Secondly, the total area is also increasing, we expect the area to go up to 1.2 million hectares by 2012 from around one million now."
Indonesia could double, or even triple its yields by containing pod borer, a worm-like pest that eats cocoa beans and using better farming techniques. The country's cocoa yields stand at 0.6 to 0.7 tonnes per hectare but experiments in some villages have shown a dramatic increase in productivity, Razak said.
"We have a success story to tell, in some villages we have even doubled productivity, now we are going to do the same thing in many villages," the official said on the sidelines of an industry meeting in Kuala Lumpur.
"The problem in Indonesia is that farmers don't have enough knowledge about good agriculture practices in cocoa, it is a big problem." Indonesia's cocoa output is expected to climb to around one million tonnes by 2012 with the help of a cocoa campaign which aims at placing field trainers in key cocoa-growing belts to teach farmers how to contain the pest and improve bean quality.
"We have hard work to do, but I am very optimistic that production of cocoa beans in Indonesia can be doubled." Indonesia, which exports cocoa beans to neighbouring Malaysia and other regions, utilises about 58 percent of the installed grinding capacity of 283,000 tonnes a year.
"We have high interest rates, ageing machinery and inadequate working capital," Razak said. "First we have to increase utilisation of the existing capacity and then we want to double it to 600,000 tonnes by 2012 as we plan to produce more cocoa."
"We would like to export finished or semi-finished products rather then just raw material, we want to do more value addition in our country." Indonesia exports cocoa beans to grinders in the United States, Malaysia, Singapore and European countries which later process them for making chocolate, beverages and ice cream.