Indonesia and the Netherlands are strong partners in the Agriculture & Food sector, complementing each other on various aspects, particularly in achieving a sustainable AgriFood system. The Embassy works on many initiatives, among others regarding Food Production, Food Loss & Waste, as well as Climate Adaptive & Smart Agriculture. In addition to our North Sumatra program, which zooms in on the development of food systems, check out our recent initiatives below.
Meet & Greet with Indonesian Agriculture Trade Partners
Agriculture Counsellor Joost van Uum led a “meet & greet”, exchanging views on recent developments in the sector from the consumer perspective. This to jointly find common goals on how Indonesia and the Netherlands can work together in order to satisfy the market demand, while identifying market potential for Dutch agricultural products.
The large consumer market in Indonesia demands good quality and nutritious food products – both fresh produce and processed food – and continues to attract foreign exporters. Since 2020, Indonesian imports from the Netherlands represented a volume of sixty one thousand tons of agricultural commodities. Looking ahead, the future offers plenty of opportunities to enhance bilateral trade as well, while strengthening the resilience, sustainability, and productivity of the agriculture and food sector in both countries together with trade and business partners in Indonesia.
Read more about the meeting here.
Renewing our relationship with East West Seed Indonesia
Agriculture Counsellor Joost van Uum, together with the Economic team of the Embassy visited PT East West Seed Indonesia (EWINDO) in Purwakarta, West Java. As a prominent producer of seeds, EWINDO showcased their advanced R&D facility, where they implement seeds breeding and pathogen identification. Glenn Pardede (Managing Director of EWINDO) explained how the company has already collaborated with Indonesian farmers for more than 30 years in producing high quality seeds, supported by 1,000 local employees and partnering with 17,000 farmers in East Java, West Java and Lampung. In many initiatives, EWINDO also partners with the Dutch Government, for instance in the “SMARTseeds” program.
Read more about the East West Seed Visit here.
Green Education to Strengthen Human Capital: The way forward
Since 2016, Indonesia and the Netherlands have been working closely together to improve agricultural vocational education in Indonesia. This aspires to empower schools, students, farmers and industry to produce competent graduates that meet labour market criteria and needs, contribute to a modern farming sector and to sustainable food production in Indonesia. In view of this, the upcoming 30th of June, an event will be hosted to disseminate achievements and share lessons learnt of a three-year pilot project and to sign a new technical agreement as a basis for continuing the collaboration on Green Education. For more information, please click here.
The mutual interest of Indonesia and the Netherlands in agriculture will be fertile ground to continue engaging the Indonesian and Dutch knowledge and private sectors to shape green education, agriculture and sustainable food production in Indonesia.
Fighting food waste to feed the world’s population
The Dutch Embassy’s agriculture offices in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore joined forces together to host an online session on Food Waste, as part of a three-part webinar series on the topic of “Sustainable Food Systems and Circular Agriculture”. Experts from the three countries shared valuable insights on the key issues with regard to Food Systems, while exchanging views on how suitable technologies like 3D food printing and sustainable coating as solution to reduce waste.
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