A four-day international cocoa festival held to boost and support the livelihoods and welfare of smallholders producing cocoa in Indonesia has attracted many visitors
four-day international cocoa festival held to boost and support the livelihoods and welfare of smallholders producing cocoa in Indonesia has attracted many visitors.
The festival, called "Improving the roles of smallholders in regional level as the potential partners towards sustainable cocoa", was organized by Oxfam and its local partners -- Kalamanjari and Business Watch -- with support from the Jembrana administration and it hosted hundreds of participants, including farmers and business people working in the country's cocoa industry.
Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises Minister Syarief Hasan said all stakeholders in the cocoa industry should work together to boost the welfare of the cocoa farmers and to support the sustainability of cocoa plantations and the industry in which 95 percent of cocoa beans in Indonesia were produced by households, not by plantations.
He said the government was committed to supporting both cocoa farmers and the industry, since it had boosted farmers' prosperity and supported the world's cocoa industry.
"Talking about chocolate, people will refer to Switzerland, but for the future we have to create a situation in which every time people talk about chocolate, they will refer to Indonesia,' Hasan said about the festival in Bali, which ended on Saturday.
Furnishing farmers with accessible credit schemes was among the initiatives the government would continue to provide to help develop the cocoa industry in the country.
The four-day event included international workshops on cocoa and its related industry, cocoa highlight exhibitions, culinary chocolate day, cultural events, corporate social responsibility events and business gatherings.
I Dewa Bujana, the popular guitarist of the pop band Gigi who was chosen as the ambassador of Indonesian cocoa farmers, welcomed the event.
'I agreed to be appointed as the ambassador for cocoa farmers in Indonesia as I hope this can make their lives better and prosperous,' said Bujana.
Jembrana is one of main cocoa producers in Indonesia, producing more than 5,000 tons of cocoa annually.
Indonesia produces more than 800,000 tons of cocoa per year. This sector employs 1.7 million farmers and workers related to cocoa businesses and involves more than 1.5 million hectares of land. Indonesia is currently the world's third largest cocoa producer after Ivory Coast and Ghana, representing around 15 percent of the global production of cocoa beans.
Oxfam country director in Indonesia, Cecilia Keizer, said Oxfam and its partners were committed to supporting smallholders and female farmers in sustainable cocoa production.
'More investment is needed in the cocoa sector not only from government institutions, banks and the private sector, but also from technical institutions and civil society organizations. We should make a joint effort to make Indonesia's cocoa industry healthy and sustainable,' she said. (ebf)
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