Development prospect of dragon fruit (Hylocereus costaricensis) in Kutai Kartanegara District, East Kalimantan

Abstract

Rizal M. 2015. Development prospect of dragon fruit (Hylocereus costaricensis) in Kutai Kartanegara District, East Kalimantan. Pros Sem Nas Masy Biodiv Indon 1: 884-888. To date, the demand for dragon fruit in Indonesia is quite large. The domestic and international producers can not fulfill this requirement, thus the chance to cultivate the dragon fruit is still open to meet the demand of the national and international market. In East Kalimantan, dragon fruit has not been much cultivated by farmers. The predominantly planted dragon fruit is red flesh dragon fruit (Hylocereus costaricensis) or Super Red. This variety is the sweetest dragon fruit. The purpose of this study was to provide information about the prospects of dragon fruit development for supporting sustainable farming of dragon that more valuable and high competitive. This assessment was conducted in Samboja sub-District, Kutai Kartanegara District, East Kalimantan Province in 2013. The collected data consisted of primary data obtained from dragon fruit farmers and secondary data taken from related ministries or agencies and scientific papers. The collecting data technique was observation, interview, and record-keeping. The result showed that the potency of dragon fruit development in East Kalimantan had good prospects in the future; it reduced fruit import and was also important to penetrate the export market. In addition, dragon fruit gave high economic benefit for the farmer, because of the value of dragon fruit R/C was 1.42. It meant that it was reasonable to be developed.