Indonesia’s ornamental plant export opportunities are still wide open. Demand from countries in the world is still quite high with a market growth of 10.24% in 2026.
“Opportunities (exports of ornamental plants) are very large. The estimate is to grow by 10% until 2026,” said RAV House owner PT Ravindo Sukses Mulia Redi Fajar Kurniawan in a discussion challenging the Forum Paragraph themed “Big Opportunity for Export of Ornamental Plants” which was held by Alinea.id recently.
In the last five years, continued Redi, the trend of ornamental plant hobbies has increased. The reason is that apart from the Covid-19 pandemic which forced people to do a lot of activities at home, it was also triggered by millennials who prefer caring for ornamental plants rather than pets.
“Our (data) sales for 2019, 2020, and 2021 (reflect it). So from April to August 2020 there was a very, very significant increase in terms of the value we exported,” said Redi.
Currently, the global ornamental plant market has reached US$27 billion or around Rp400 trillion, with the Netherlands dominating the first place. Meanwhile, Indonesia still loses to other Asian countries, such as Thailand and Vietnam, even though Indonesia has more diverse plasma seeds.
One of the problems that are still Indonesia’s homework is the lack of understanding from exporters and other parties regarding phytosanitary in destination countries. As a result, ornamental plant exports experience obstacles in destination countries.
“The plant quarantine conditions have not been understood. There are still many shipments of these plants that do not have a PC (phytosanitary certificate),” said the Sub-Coordinator of Export and Inter-Area Seeds, Center for Plant Quarantine and Newani Biosafety of the Agricultural Quarantine Agency (Barantan) of the Ministry of Agriculture, Aulia Nusantara, at the same event.
In addition to the lack of understanding about plant health certification (phytosanitary certificate/PC), explained Aulia, many ornamental plant business actors still do not understand that the export requirements in each destination country are different. For example, exports of ornamental plants totaling more than 12 sticks to the United States must have an import permit issued by the minister of agriculture through the Directorate General of Horticulture at the Ministry of Agriculture.
“Australia is the most stringent because apart from having to be free from OPT (Plant Pest Organisms) and phytosanitary documents, plants that arrive in Australia cannot be immediately taken or released by customs (customs) there. But you have to leave it for 3 months in an Australian government quarantine facility,” said Aulia.
Because of this, there are still cases of stopping or even returning plants to their countries of origin due to this misinformation. “If it does not meet the requirements of the destination country, there will be a notification of non-compliance, such as a warning from the destination country that the plants sent do not comply with our requirements. Then resistance. Usually, notifications of non-compliance are accompanied by actions of rejection or re-export (to the country of origin),” said Aulia.
Although Barantan provides full support for potential exporters or exporters of ornamental plants, such as technical guidance and outreach, business people are advised to seek information independently.
“Because, say, once there is an exporter who does not comply with the specified requirements, the impact will be everywhere. Not only that, other exporters can also be hit. Even our country can be banned (prohibited) for cases of certain types of plants, “said Redi.
