NRG Workshop
“Urgency and Prospects for Standard/Certification Development
and Domestic Market”
In order to discuss strategies to develop the domestic tea market, especially through standards and certification and to brainstorm activities that can be conducted together with tea stakeholders to help improve the quality and price of tea shoots for farmers, the National Reference Group, supported by the Indonesian Tea Council, held a workshop “Urgency and Prospects Standard/Certification Development and Domestic Market”.
This workshop was held for 2 days at the Grand Cemara Hotel, Jakarta and was attended by 47 participants from all stakeholders in the tea sector such as farmers, business actors (private – BUMN), department of agriculture, plantation service, trade department, National Standardization Agency, Indonesian Tea Council, Tea Lover Indonesia community and other stakeholders. With Keynote speaker (day I) Mr. Ir. Rizki Muis (Director of Cultivation of Spices and Refreshing Plants, Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Indonesia) and Mr. Aria Bima (Deputy Chair of Commission VI DPR RI). Also present at this workshop, Dr. Shatadru Chattopadhayay (Director of Solidaridad South and Southeast Asia), Ms. Imke van Gasselt and Ms.Tessa Laan (Representative of UTZ Certified Netherlands). Chairman of the Indonesian Tea Council and business actors in the tea sector, namely PTPN VIII (Mr. Agus Supriyadi – Director of Commodity Tea) and PT. Pagilaran (Bp Rachmad Gunadi-President Director) also shared information regarding the condition of tea in Indonesia and the forms of partnerships that have been carried out by the business sector with farmers.
There are 4 materials that are the focus of the workshop, namely related to markets, standards, institutional management (organizations) and smallholders (farmers). The discussion of each of these materials was divided into commissions with the results of each commission, namely:
Commission “Market”
The lack of efforts to promote tea products, the decline in tea productivity, the entry of foreign tea products are the challenges faced by the Indonesian tea sector. Some steps that can be taken are: increasing efforts to promote Indonesian tea, developing markets, increasing people’s tea production through intensification and horizontal diversification. There is also a need for a formal standardization and certification institution that is credible and can be trusted and accepted by both domestic and global markets.
Commission “Standard”
The standards commission believes that there is a need for a standard that allows manufacturers to easily adopt international certification. The standard must contain elements such as: quality, food safety, social aspects, environmental aspects and a traceability system with the standard scope of shoot production, processing and covering the entire supply chain. However, in its implementation, it is necessary to carry out a pilot project first and build a standard authority. The right body to become the owner of this standard is DTI but a certification support network is needed such as in terms of capital.
Commission “Smallholder”
Smallholders have important potential, i.e., vast plantation area, but farmers face obstacles in terms of productivity, capital and human resources. Farmers need an effort to increase farmers’ income and mastery of technology. The use of biogas is one of the steps in the technology transfer program that can be carried out by farmers, in addition to the establishment of a Smallholders’ Tea Production and Marketing Consultation Forum (Forum Musyawarah Produksi dan Pemasaran Teh Rakyat/FMP2TR) involving 3 elements, namely farmers, government elements and manufacturers (business actors).
Commission “Institutional”
This commission is of the opinion that the tea industry has experienced problems for many years, namely the programs carried out by the government have not yet had clear objectives and are still partial, farmers need partners to be able to maintain the sustainability of their businesses. Therefore, some efforts are needed to strengthen the functions and cooperation between related institutions and agencies such as the Indonesian Tea Council, as well as ministries such as domestic affairs, foreign affairs, tourism, industry, BUMN, financial departments/institutions, agriculture department.