shallots as a farmer's commodity
Shallots are one of the leading vegetable commodities that have been intensively cultivated by farmers for a long time. This vegetable commodity belongs to the group of non-substituted spices that function as food seasonings as well as ingredients for traditional medicines. The average production growth of shallots during the period 1989-2003 was 3.9% per year. The growth component of harvested area (3.5%) actually contributed more to the growth of shallot production compared to the productivity component (0.4%). Shallots are produced in 24 of the 30 provinces in Indonesia. The main producing provinces (harvested area > 1 000 hectares per year) of shallots include North Sumatra, West Sumatra, West Java, Central Java, DI Yogya, East Java, Bali, NTB and South Sulawesi. These nine provinces accounted for 95.8% (Java contributed 75%) of the total shallot production in Indonesia in 2003. The average consumption of shallots for 2004 was 4.56 kg/capita/year or 0.38 kg/capita/month (Di...