President Jokowi presses for downstreaming of all commodities

West Lampung, Lampung (ANTARA) - President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) pushed for including all plantation and agricultural commodities in the industrialization and downstreaming program to increase their selling value.

"All of our agricultural commodities must enter industrialization and be downstreamed. I just saw coffee products that have good packaging here, and they are ready for export," Jokowi remarked here on Friday.

The president expects that the industrialization and downstreaming of agricultural commodities could eventually support the welfare of farmers.

"Everything should be packaged and ready to export like these ones here," he stated.

He explained that the trade of agricultural commodities must no longer be in the form of raw materials but in a variety of packaged products.

"We have been doing the trade of raw materials for hundreds of years. Raw commodities must be downstreamed into their derivative products," he emphasized.

The president stated that Lampung Province can handle the downstream processing of several top commodities, such as coffee.

"Not only coffee, chocolate, and palm oil but everything, including other plantation and agricultural commodities, must be downstreamed," he emphasized.

Syafrudin, a coffee farmer in Kambahang Village, Batu Brak Sub-district, West Lampung District, expected the government to support the implementation of coffee downstreaming.

Syafrudin explained that so far, local farmers only sell coffee in the form of unroasted beans.

"With industrialization and downstreaming, coffee can help farmers, as it is not sold too cheaply because there is a storage (facility)," he stated.

He believes that the storage facility can help maintain the coffee quality, as the commodity's picking process will be more selective.

Farmers there also sought assistance from the president in the form of a simple coffee-drying machine for the post-harvest process.