Agribusiness, a long bumpy road ahead

Text and photo by Sri Wahyuni

YOGYAKARTA (JP): Hoping that agribusiness would some day become the number one source of income for Yogyakarta seems to be too optimistic, regardless of the fact that the tiny province is a location for fertile soil. Limited land, and to some extent, local farmers' attitudes, seem to be the main problems.

According to head of the agribusiness development section of Yogyakarta provincial agriculture office, Mulyono, the province had the resources to develop agribusiness but could not do so any further because the land was limited in area.

The province, he said, was blessed with soil so fertile, thanks to Mt. Merapi, that you could plant almost anything on it. Vegetables, including the economically high-value ones such as asparagus, broccoli and snow peas; horticulture plantations like mango, durian, and noted Pondoh Zalacca fruit; crops, and of course rice, grew well in the region.

"Market demand, too, is enormous. Yet, again, we always have difficulties in meeting the ordered volume of the agribusiness products due mostly to limited land on which to plant and the behavior of the farmers," Mulyono said.

The problem is also evident, even for Pondoh Zalacca, or Salak Pondoh (colloquially known as snake-fruit, due to the appearance of its skin) as it is locally known, regardless of the fact that the fruit has long been the province's "trade mark" as well as a high-quality commodity.

Yogyakarta currently has some 3.5 million to four million salak plants occupying some 1,500 hectares (ha) of land, mostly in Sleman regency. Each of the plants usually produces some 20 kilograms (kg) to 25 kg of fruit per year, meaning that the province's total production of the fruit is between 70,000 tons and 100,000 tons.

Yet, the province often finds it difficult to meet large- volume orders because most farmers own only limited land on which to grow the plant. Moreover, most of them have different harvesting times, making it more difficult to collect large amounts of salak at one time to meet the orders.

"The nature of the fruit, too, creates another problem in fulfilling the required quality of the products," said Yustina Sutarmi, head of the agribusiness supervision, agricultural and horticultural product processing subdivision.

"This particular fruit is already edible even when it is still very young. Other kinds of salak, including Salak Bali and Salak Gading, are usually bitter when they are still young," said Sutarmi, adding that that had often motivated some farmers to harvest their fruit while still young.

Buyers usually require top, grade-A quality products for export purposes. This means that, among other things, the required product should not be harvested young, and there is also a need for a selection phase to choose those of the required size before the fruit are sold.

Nevertheless, farmers were mostly reluctant to do so because they could still sell the product at a reasonable price to brokers, Sutarmi said.

"We have been providing supervision since 1985, but most farmers are still reluctant to do such things. It's understandable because most brokers do not offer adequate economic appreciation for such efforts," said Sutarmi, adding that similar supervision was currently provided for salak brokers.

Other superior agribusiness commodities that the province has been developing or maintaining include, among others, mango and cassava in Gunung Kidul regency, mangosteen and durian in Kulon Progo regency, food crops and chili in Bantul regency, and salak Pondoh and vegetables in Sleman regency.

Pilot project

According to Mulyono, the development of agribusiness in the province was done through an integrated program of KPPE, or districts as the center of economic development, involving 14 districts with potential from 78 in the province.

Plantation of economically high-value vegetables, such as snow peas and asparagus, for example, currently occurs in the districts of Cangkringan and Pakem on the slope of Mt. Merapi. The pilot project was conducted in cooperation with the government of the Republic of China (Taiwan) through the Agriculture Technical Mission (ATM) scheme.

The asparagus pilot project, which has been running for about a year in Hargobinangun village in Pakem district, some 20 km north of Yogyakarta, produces some 20 kg of asparagus per day.

Umi Ardiana, a member of staff at the ATM office, said the program had prepared some 3,000 ha of land for the pilot project. So far only 7,000 square meters had been cultivated for the plantations. The project started in October last year, with only 1,000 square meters of land to begin with.

Economic calculations, according to Umi, actually showed that planting asparagus was more beneficial for farmers, especially as the plants did not require complicated treatment and could survive for about 10 years once they had been planted.

The pilot project further supported the calculation because the soil was indeed suitable for the plants and could yield about three kg to four kg of asparagus per day per 1,000 square meters, which was a good harvest.

Yet, field experience showed that local farmers did not seem to be interested in the business, especially as they had to wait for about a year before they could harvest the plantation.

"This, as I see it, is what seems to be hard to bear because for the entire first year the farmers could harvest nothing, while they would have had no other source of income on which to rely," Umi explained.

Therefore, under such circumstances, it would have been difficult for the region to fulfill market demand for a minimum of 500 kg of asparagus per container per shipment, preventing it from exporting the commodity.

"The only commodity that we have been exporting by ourselves to Taiwan is snow peas," said Umi, adding that the snow peas plantation started in 1997 and covered an area of about 14.5 ha in Cangkringan and Pakem districts.

The plantation was carried out using the nucleus-plasma mechanism, in which the project provided the farmers with free seedlings, chemical fertilizers, and pesticides for the first year. Farmers needed only to prepare the nets to cover the plantation, and to supply additional fertilizer.

Exporting was done between once a week and twice a week, with three tons to four tons of snow peas per container per shipment.

"More and more farmers are joining the project because they have learned from their colleagues that the business is truly beneficial. Most of them prefer to avoid the risks inherent in trial and error," said Umi.

Another example of an agribusiness commodity that the province is exporting is dried cassava, locally known as gaplek. Gunung Kidul, which is known for its dry areas, is the home of some 50,000 ha of cassava fields, producing about 15 tons to 20 tons of gaplek per ha per year.

Again, this volume of product has not yet been able to fulfill export demands and cannot be further expanded due to the limited plantation area. Exports, mostly to the United States and Korea, are currently carried out via a third party. Similar methods have been adopted for other commodities.

"This is why it has been difficult for us to obtain precise data about the province's agribusiness products, as most of them are sold via third parties," Sutarmi said.

According to Sutarmi, the regional policy seemed to place more emphasis on how to enable farmers in the region to make optimal use of their limited land in order to survive by trying to maximize their earnings. That's why the smart idea of planting saleable types of commodity was met with high motivation.

"That's what the local government has been promoting," Sutarmi said.