Corn Council Sets Sulawesi Production at Five Millions Tons
Makassar (ANTARA Sulsel) - The chairman of the National Corn Council, Fadel Mohammad, said he would strive to increase corn production in six provinces in Sulawesi to five tons a year.
At present total production of the provinces only reached around 2.5 million tons while the land for its plantations reaches five million hectares, he said after seeing off MV Kent vessel carrying 1800 tons of corn from Gorontalo for export to the Philippines here on Thursday.
He said Malaysia's demand for corn reached three million tons a year while the Philippines two million tons a year while Korea needs around 12.5 million tons a year.
He said Malaysia used the commodity for animal feed while the Philippines and South Korea also used it for their beer industry.
Fadel, who is the governor of Gorontalo province, said the biggest export of corn came from the US and Argentina.
He said South Sulawesi's corn contribution reached only 1.5 million tons a year making it the biggest contributor in Sulawesi in 2008.
He predicted the amount could still be raised to three million tons in view of availability of land for it.
Gorontalo producing 800,000 tons falls the second along with four other provinces.
He said Gorontalo itself planned to increase its production to one million tons this year. However he said before the move was taken the market prospect needed to be known first.
In view of that he said he would apply the concept of sell, plant, pick and process with a hope exporters knew which countries would place orders before farmers started to planting.
"There should be synchronization between farmers' production and countries that place orders at the early stage so that we are not afraid our production will pile up or is unsold," he said.
He said the concept was the reverse as practiced by former South Sulawesi governor Amiruddin namely plant, pick, process and sell.
(T.SYS/E002)
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