News on Potato Cultivation from Indonesia

Indonesia, with over 275 million people, is poised to become the world’s 4th largest economy within the next decade. An early December Canadian trade mission, with strong representation from PEI’s potato industry, explored expanding Asian market opportunities to diversify exports and reduce reliance on shipping into the United States. 

Expanding cultivation of potatoes on Indonesia’s Sumatra Island infringes on Kerinci Seblat National Park, the largest protected area on Sumatra and one of the last refuges of the Sumatran tiger, Sumatran elephant and the Sunda clouded leopard.

Potatoes cultivation is partly to blame for a recent landslide in Wonosobo, Central Java, as farmers engage in unsafe planting practices that harm the environment to try to reap high prices - according to a study revealed last week.