Agribusiness, a long bumpy road for Yogyakarta

Agribusiness, a long bumpy road for Yogyakarta

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.