Competitiveness analysis of fresh tomatoes in Indonesia: Turning comparative advantage into competitive advantage.

Tomato commodity ranks fifth regarding vegetable export volume and value in Indonesia. The main issues with tomato production in Indonesia are seemingly its lack of variations, quantity, quality, and supply continuity. This study aimed to analyze the comparative and the competitive advantages of tomato farming, evaluate the government policy on inputs, outputs, and input-output sectors, and formulate strategic for transforming the comparative advantage into a competitive advantage. Policy Analysis Matrix (PAM) and sensitivity analysis were employed as the method with the 75 farmers as the respondents and their Focus Group Discussion (FGD) involving farmer groups, agricultural extension workers, traders, and the Agricultural Service Offices in the respective regencies. The results showed that tomato farming has both its comparative and competitive advantages. Its comparative advantage was higher than its competitive advantage in both dry and wet seasons. In general, tomato farming's comparative and competitive advantages outside Java were higher than those in Java. Meanwhile, the divergence effects of tomato agribusiness were more beneficial to consumers than producers. It indicates that improving domestic tomato production was more profitable for Indonesia than importing this commodity in terms of domestic resource use. The sensitivity analysis shows that tomato farming was relatively stable regarding productivity and price changes. The suggested strategic policies to apply are transforming tomato farming's comparative advantage into competitive advantage through productivity enhancement, improvement of distribution efficiency, less market distortion, and government incentives.

Analysis of competitive and comparative advantages of potato production in Indonesia.

Fundamental issues in sustainable development of competitive potato production in Indonesia are production and distribution inefficiencies. This study aims to examine the potato production competitiveness through competitive and comparative analyses as well as evaluating the impacts of government policy on potato production. This study employs Policy Analysis Matrix (PAM) to analyse the cross-section data collected from six regencies in Indonesia. Potato production in Indonesia was profitable privately and socially. The highest value of competitive advantage was indicated by PCR value in the dry season in Wonosobo Regency, Central Java Province. The lowest values were found in Bandung Regency. Highest comparative advantage was revealed in Tanah Karo Regency, North Sumatra Province, during the rainy season. Highest comparative advantage was found in Bandung Regency, West Java Province, in the dry season. However, the social profit was lower than the private profit indicating the potato farmers dealt with disincentives due to imperfect market. It implies that increasing domestic potato production will be more profitable rather than import. The policy makers need to evaluate the recent policies on input and output markets as well as the supply chain of potato to cope with imperfect markets in order to increase farmers' income.