Governor Bali Wayan Koster Hopes 60 Percent of Bali Population Is Ready to Farm

  • 18 Oktober 2019
  • 21:14 WITA
  • News

 

Balitopnews.com, Denpasar

Bali Governor Wayan Koster revealed, one of the policies currently being drawn up by his party is to prioritize the food sector. "My vision is management from upstream to downstream, and we really need the knowledge of food experts to make that happen," Governor Koster said at the gala dinner and art evening 16th Asian Food Conference 2019, at Jayasabha Denpasar, Thursday night (October 17, 2019) .

He mentioned, so far many government policies have relied on upstream. "But after there is a result, it is not well taken care of. The season of oranges, mangosteen, grapes, prices fall during harvest. Farmers are less prosperous. This must be taken care of thoroughly," Koster said.

He continued, the policies set forth in Governor Regulation 99 of 2018 concerning the utilization and management of agricultural products, need the support of experts. "We need to get along a lot with food experts to develop the food processing industry and create food processing centers," he said.

Governor Koster explained that the contribution of the agriculture and food sector only contributed 14.5 percent of Bali's total income, where the tourism sector had touched the 69 percent figure. "We want to change this, so that it is not lame. The exchange rate of farmers' commodity yields is still small. It is necessary to downstream agriculture to develop the food sector in Bali," he said, stressing.

To that end, Governor Koster claimed he would invite experts to discuss and find solutions. "Slowly, we will shift our dependency on tourism to primary sectors such as agriculture. Related to that, of the total 4.2 million residents of Bali, 60 percent of them are expected to be able to work as farmers, so that they will have an economic foundation for the long term," Governor added.

Meanwhile, Prof. Umar Santoso, president of The Federation of the Institute of Food Science and Technology in ASEAN (FIFSTA) said that his party which also represented the association of Indonesian food experts, highly appreciated the gala dinner organized by the Governor of Bali. "We hope to get many benefits from the holding of the conference in Bali," he said.

The activity with many agendas from the workshop to the 3-day competition between students in Bali, said Prof. Santoso, was carried out by his side in collaboration with the Faculty of Agricultural Technology, Udayana University (Unud).

On that occasion, Prof. Umar said he was ready to help and support the governor's program to strengthen the agriculture and food sector, starting from post-harvest, nutrition, processing to food distribution. "As it happens, our members are mostly from agriculture and food technology. Our members are ready to support, and allow us to help as much as we can," Prof Santoso said.

On the occasion a dance performance of young artists from SMKN 5 Denpasar was staged, not to mention Mrs. Suastini Koster who also performed a poem entitled 'Oath Kumbakarna'. As usual, the number one companion in Bali is able to amaze the audience through the appreciation and deepening of the poem based on the Ramayana story. (Balitopnews.com/MD/Amo Bali)

 


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