Cafe's rise belie industry decline

Kurniawan Hari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The rapid growth of cafes in cities nationwide during the past few years has done little to help the local coffee industry, producers say.

Indonesian Coffee Exporters Association (AEKI) executive secretary Rachim Kartabrata told The Jakarta Post that this year's coffee production was expected to reach 480,000 tons, about the same as production in previous years.

Of that volume, 300,000 tons will be sold on the export market, 120,000 on domestic market, with the remaining 60,000 tons will be kept as year-end stock.

Rachim said the growing number of coffee shops in the country had not yet led to an increase in the consumption of local beans.

"International-chain cafes like Starbucks only use a small portion of local arabica coffee from Mandailing in North Sumatra. They have to import other coffees to maintain the taste and flavor of their products," Rachim said.

For centuries, Indonesia has been known as a major coffee producer. The Dutch colonial rulers, who introduced the plant into the country in 1690, forced local people to grow the commodity and managed to collect huge revenues from trading the bean.

Coffee remains a major agricultural export here and Indonesia is the world's fifth-largest coffee producer after Brazil, Vietnam, Colombia and Mexico.

There are about 40 varieties of coffee in the world, but only two of them -- arabica and robusta -- are commercially traded. Almost 75 percent of the world's production is in arabica coffee, with robusta amounting for the remaining 25 percent.

Ninety percent of Indonesia's output, however, is robusta coffee, which is mostly produced in South Sumatra. Arabica, meanwhile, is grown in Aceh, North Sumatra, East Java, and South Sulawesi.

Fluctuations in the prices for coffee on the world market and local climate changes have meant life has been difficult for many coffee growers in recent years.

Low prices and harvest failures have discouraged farmers from expanding their coffee plantations, and many have abandoned coffee for more lucrative crops.

Rachim said the government should learn from Vietnam about how to develop the crop here.

In 1995, Indonesia with an annual coffee production of 5.8 million bags was the world's third-largest coffee producer after Brazil and Colombia, which produced 15 million bags and 12 million bags respectively, he said.

In less than 10 years, however, Vietnam's production had skyrocketed and the nation now trails behind Brazil as the world's second-largest coffee producer, producing 14 million bags in 2004.

Indonesia produced only 5.7 million bags in 2004, while Brazil produced a whopping 38 million, Rachim said.

He said the key behind Vietnam's success was the commitment of the Vietnamese government, which gave fertilizer subsidies and cheap loans to its coffee farmers. The government had also built infrastructure, including irrigation systems, for it farmers and helped them transport their product and nurture their plants.

Rachim urged the government to do the same thing here.

"Otherwise, Indonesia's status as a major coffee producer could become a thing of the past," he said.