Indonesia aiming to replant 7,000 hectares of cocoa in 2026-2027 to improve output, official says

YOGYAKARTA: Indonesia is aiming to replant 7,000 hectares (17,297 acres) of cocoa plantations over this year and the next in an effort to reverse shrinking production, a deputy minister for food affairs said on Wednesday.

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The government will aim to replant 2,000 hectares of cocoa farms this year and 5,000 hectares next year, Hanif Faisol Nurofiq, Deputy Coordinating Minister for Food Affairs, told an industry conference.

The annual replanting target will be multiplied in the future to match the scale of the plantations, Hanif said, adding that cocoa trees covering over 270,000 hectares are now more than 20 years old.

Indonesia is a major cocoa producer, but production has been in steady decline over the past decade due to ageing trees and lack of investment.

Cocoa climbs as demand revives and production set to fall

From 2015 to 2025, the size of Indonesia’s cocoa farms shrunk more than 20% to 1.37 million hectares, food ministry data showed.

To help finance efforts to boost production, the government will recommend a budget of 1.6 trillion rupiah ($89.31 million) to Indonesia’s plantation fund agency to subsidise replanting, yield improvements, crop rehabilitation and the development of human resources, Hanif said.

The agency collects funds from palm oil exports to help finance its programmes and started collecting a cocoa export levy last year.‑Reuters