Indonesia plans to develop downstream industry of khat leaves

The Minister of Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises (MenkopUKM) encourages the downstream development of various products of khat leaves, which has a huge potential for downstream product development and can even earn up to Rp 90 million per kilogram (Kg).In the Cabinet meeting, kaina was designated as an herbal medicine. It has product potential for use not only in the food and beverage or catering industry, but also in the pharmaceutical and health industries. It would be a shame to sell only the raw material. The price of the extract is currently as high as US$6,000 per kilogram, or 90 million dong. In addition, he said, the technology for downstream production equipment is also relatively cheap and easy to obtain. This technology is not difficult or expensive. In the future, the government will work together to figure out whether to build another co-production plant or whether the industry will build its own. So far, India and the US are using it. It costs about Rp 10 billion to build a plant for downstream processing to extraction of khat leaves, while the price of the extraction production equipment is only about Rp 3.5 billion. The potential for this is very high, very high in Europe and the United States. They also want MSMEs not to produce the same products, they want to process downstream natural resources, plantation products, agricultural products or marine commodities. So in order to supply the industry, even from this extract, the beverage industry can make energy drinks from kahuna leaves. He ensured that kahuna leaf herb is safe and not a class I narcotic, he did not deny that kahuna leaf is banned in the United States but this is not because kahuna leaf is a narcotic but because of the presence of E. coli bacteria.

He is optimistic about what can be done downstream of the kanache product, especially since the Anugerah Bumi Hijau Producers' Cooperative (Koprabuh) has already conducted a fairly in-depth study. This could be a raw material for the supply chain of the pharmaceutical, food and beverage industries as well as others. The global demand for kahuna leaves is increasing, and according to the Ministry of Trade, the export value of kahuna leaves has been growing at a trend of 15.921 TP3T per year since 2019. One of the main export destinations of Indonesian Kahnu Leaf is the U.S.A. The U.S.A. portion reached 4.86 million USD in the period of January to May 2023, accounting for 66.31 TP3T of the total export value of Indonesian Kahnu Leaf.He hoped that it would not be possible for other countries to capitalize on the great potential and profitability of Kahnu Leaf. Meanwhile, Chief Executive Officer of Koprabuh Cooperative Indonesia said that kanache products have entered the category of herbal medicine and legal export with great potential for development. The word is green gold and it has more potential than palm oil. Growing kachin leaves is not complicated; the key is that it must be close to water sources, river basins, swamps and lake shores. Even when they are flooded for three months, kahuna trees continue to grow.