Competitiveness analysis of fresh tomatoes in Indonesia: Turning comparative advantage into competitive advantage

Tomato commodity ranks fifth regarding vegetable export volume and value in Indonesia. The main issues with tomato production in Indonesia are seemingly its lack of variations, quantity, quality, and supply continuity. This study aimed to analyze the comparative and the competitive advantages of tomato farming, evaluate the government policy on inputs, outputs, and input-output sectors, and formulate strategic for transforming the comparative advantage into a competitive advantage. Policy Analysis Matrix (PAM) and sensitivity analysis were employed as the method with the 75 farmers as the respondents and their Focus Group Discussion (FGD) involving farmer groups, agricultural extension workers, traders, and the Agricultural Service Offices in the respective regencies. The results showed that tomato farming has both its comparative and competitive advantages. Its comparative advantage was higher than its competitive advantage in both dry and wet seasons. In general, tomato farming’s comparative and competitive advantages outside Java were higher than those in Java. Meanwhile, the divergence effects of tomato agribusiness were more beneficial to consumers than producers. It indicates that improving domestic tomato production was more profitable for Indonesia than importing this commodity in terms of domestic resource use. The sensitivity analysis shows that tomato farming was relatively stable regarding productivity and price changes. The suggested strategic policies to apply are transforming tomato farming’s comparative advantage into competitive advantage through productivity enhancement, improvement of distribution efficiency, less market distortion, and government incentives.