Description
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An obstacle in Indonesian crop estate products marketing abroad is the contamination of chemical pesticide residues and heavy metals. Implementing integrated pest management (IPM) and organic certification on estate crops are applied to meet consumer demands for healthier, quality, and safer products. Seventy-four of the 2351 certified organic products registered at Competence Authority of Organic Food, MOA, are primary and processed products from 12 estate crops commodities, i.e. cashew, cinnamon, citronella, coffee, cocoa, coconut, kapok, palm sugar, nutmeg, pepper, tea, and vanilla. In the organic certification process, pest control is carried out integrated by combining various environmentally-friendly control components, available in the garden environment, and/or organic certified commercial biopesticides, no synthetic chemical pesticides. Farmers' experience has shown that plant pests are relatively easy to control, while plant diseases with high damage intensity and fast spreading were difficult to control and plants must be eradicated. Therefore, a more innovative integrated pest control technology is needed to carry out organic certification in estate crops.
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