Indonesian is fruitful all years long. This country, heaven of tropical fruits, offers diversity in characteristics of tropical fruits, such as variety of taste and looks. Indonesian tropical fruit has been responding to become more export oriented. Indonesian tropical fruit is a promising business. Having such a rich biodiversity, human resources and government support, Indonesia still has a lot of potential to fulfil the robust growth demand of tropical fruits around the world. Indonesia tropical fruits are known for its great taste, top quality especially with organic premium products and abundant choices to make Indonesia as one of top suppliers in the world. Nowadays, with supports from many institutions, Indonesia also offers its capacity as a producer, exporter, and home for investment.
In terms of production, Indonesia is one among the top ten producers of fruits around the world. Ranked fifth of global production of major fruits, Indonesia produced around 3% of the total production, after China (21%), India (13.6%), Brazil (6%), and USA (4%). But based on area of production, Indonesia only covered 3% of total area of production, or last in the top ten list. This made Indonesia placed in the second position, after USA of top ten global producer countries in terms of productivity. Banana, orange, and mango are top three yield fruits in Indonesia. Ministry of Agriculture of Indonesia reported some fruits with high production trend during 2013-2017, including orange, apple, mangosteen, avocado, and jackfruit, and with moderate trend of exotic fruits like guava, banana, soursop, jackfruit, rose apple and starfruit.
At the same time, domestic high consumption still drives the focus of this industry in Indonesia. Moreover, Indonesia is still considered as an importer country for fruits, especially some major fruits like apples, grapes, strawberries, and citrus. Therefore, the industry is still developing to become more export oriented.
According to The Ministry of Agriculture of Republic of Indonesia, reasons behind the growing export of Indonesian tropical fruits are better post-harvest, raising popularity and most fruit export are premium, organic products. Those are often classified also as superfood.
Tamarinds, banana and plantain, pineapples, mangosteens, snake fruit and mangoes, durians are among popular Indonesian export fruits. Chalerm chai Wongs-Aree, Sompoch Noichinda, Postharvest Physiology and Quality Maintenance of Tropical Fruits, in Postharvest Handling (Third Edition), 2014, note that tropical fruits are grown and developed in high temperature climatic zones, presenting a biodiversity of fruit cultivars varying in structure, characteristics and physiology. That makes Indonesian tropical fruits are superior to the others from Southeast Asian region with their largest varieties among each type of fruit, and also great taste since the plantation spread throughout the area in this country.
