Nusantara Tropical Farm, Largest Producer of Bananas in Indonesia

Besides producing Cavendish bananas, Nusantara Tropical Farm also cultivates guavas, dragon fruits and pineapples on its 3,757-hectare plantation in Lampung (South Sumatra). The company was established in 1992.

Key strategy for Nusantara Tropical Farm to boost its export performance in 2017 is to add new export markets to its portfolio. Over the past couple of years the company successfully managed to undermine the dominance of the Philippines in (Southeast) Asia in terms of fruit exports. However, Stefanus Manukiley, Director at Nusantara Tropical Farm, said the company will raise efforts to enlarge its export volumes in 2017, both to new markets and to its existing export markets such as Japan, South Korea, the Middle East, and Southeast Asian nations.

One key market is Singapore. Manukiley said his company already exports fruit to Singapore. However, the volumes are low, and therefore it is eager to boost exports to Singapore. Although Singapore is a small nation, it is labeled the "window of the world", thus an interesting place to display Nusantara Tropical Farm's fruit. Another market that is on Nusantara Tropical Farm's priority list is Japan. In 2016 the company shipped 400,000 boxes of Cavendish bananas to Japan. This year, it aims to double this figure.

Meanwhile, Nusantara Tropical Farm targets to produce 6.07 million boxes of Cavendish bananas in 2017, up from 5.1 million boxes of bananas in the preceding year. If it manages to export 1.8 million boxes, then it would imply that around 30 percent of production is exported abroad in 2017. The remainder is sold on the domestic market. In the years ahead, the company wants to see its exports grow continuously. By 2020 it targets to export 6 - 7 million boxes of bananas.

The fact that Nusantara Tropical Farm exports its fruit to South Korea and Japan implies that the company's products meet high safety and quality standards. Manukiley adds that his company is also eager to export pineapples to China in the future.

Nusantara Tropical Farm is also searching for new land to establish new fruit plantations, both on Kalimantan and in Blitar (East Java).

Although Indonesia contains great potential due to the tropical climate and large land-banks, the nation's fruit export volume remains small. Factors that limit higher export volumes and earnings are (1) the quality of Indonesian fruit is generally low because nearly all of Indonesian fruit farmers are smallholders who lack the financial resources to invest in higher-quality machinery, pesticides and fertilizer, and who also lack mastery of higher-quality farming techniques. Secondly, Indonesia does not have big fruit plantations or estates. Thirdly, despite being rich in tropical fruit, Indonesia lacks a well developed cold storage & transport industry (adequate handling of freshly picked fruit is crucial for long storage and shelf lives of fruit and vegetables).

Production & Export Nusantara Tropical Farm:

	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016
Banana Production (in million boxes)	1.59	1.95	3.31	5.02	5.06	5.09
Banana Export (in million boxes)	0.13	0.11	0.41	1.79	1.53	1.14

Banana Production in Indonesia:

	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016
Banana Production (in million tons)	6.13	6.19	6.28	6.86	7.30	n.a.

^{Source: Bisnis Indonesia}

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