East Java coffee farmers prosper amid crisis

East Java coffee farmers prosper amid crisis

By Lewa Pardomuan

SIDOMULYO, East Java (Reuters): Not all Indonesians have
suffered so badly in their country's economic collapse. In fact,
coffee growers are doing rather nicely.

At the start of 1980, farmers living in this hilly and quiet
Indonesian village were too poor to buy the staple rice. Instead,
they ate dried cassava, which they cultivated on their farms.
Then coffee started to change their lives.

"We used to live in a hut with a thatched roof. But now, even
during the economic crisis, we are surviving," said Masduki, a
coffee farmer in Sidomulyo, about 230 km (140 miles) east of
Surabaya, the provincial capital of East Java.

Thanks to the massive fall in Indonesia's currency over the
past two years, coffee growers are now paid many more rupiah for
their product, which is priced internationally in U.S. dollars.

"We feel blessed during the crisis. When we have guests we can
easily boil water for them because we have a gas stove. We can
afford to buy a television too," Masduki, wearing a light purple
sarong and a black songkok, a traditional hat, told Reuters
inside his brick house near his coffee plantation.

Thatched-roof huts have become a thing of the past in
Sidomulyo.

"In the past, no one from this village could afford to go on
the haj pilgrimage to Mecca. Now, there are plenty. I plan to do
it when God wants me to," said the 59-year-old father of two as
he puffed a clove cigarette.

There are about 5,000 families in Sidomulyo, a village in
Jember regency -- the key coffee growing area in East Java -- and
most of them grow coffee. Masduki owns 3,200 robusta coffee trees
in a two-hectare plot and currently leads a communal workshop.

"One day, I want to become an exporter," he said.

Farmers are producing more coffee, too. The crop for the
1998/99 coffee season (October-September) is expected to exceed
400,000 tones, compared with 360,000 tones estimated for the
previous year.

Coffee is also grown in Sumatra, Indonesia's top growing area.

When Masduki started planting robusta coffee in his village in
1981, farmers received as little as Rp 1,500/kg.

At the start of the economic crisis in 1997, the rupiah traded
at Rp 2,400 per dollar and a kilogram of coffee was priced at
between Rp 4,000 and Rp 5,000.

Coffee prices continued to rise as the economy deteriorated.
Current prices are Rp 15,000/kg with the rupiah hovering at Rp
8,800 against the dollar.

"The crisis has become the best momentum to promote
agribusiness... It is expected to change all the negative
perception about agriculture," said Handri Suwasono, chairman of
the plantation bureau of the Jember administration.

"In the past, people only wanted to deal with such businesses
as property. But agribusiness survives during the crisis," he
said.

Plantations in Jember cover an area of 15,675 hectares (38,730
acres). Its 20,000 farmers own around 4,200 hectares (10,400
acres) while the rest belongs to state-run and private plantation
companies.

Indonesia is one of the world's top producers of coffee,
cocoa, rubber, pepper and palm oil, but it is only during the
crisis -- which has ravaged secondary and tertiary sectors --
that people started to realize the importance of agribusiness.

During the rule of former president Soeharto, Indonesia strove
hard to become an industrialized country and neglected
agriculture. Soeharto was forced to step down last May amid
bloody riots in Jakarta that killed 1,200 people.

Indonesia never entirely overlooked agricultural production,
however, and the recent revival has also benefited the officials
responsible for spreading expertise among the farmers.

"Farmers will come to us and complain if we are not so active
in teaching them how to take care of their coffee," said Husni
Thamrin, one of the officials employed by the local government to
educate coffee farmers in Jember.

"Actually, our additional income comes from working together
with the farmers. They will give us a tip, say, if we give them
information about prices and other stuff," he said.

Being civil servants, the educators' income is as little as Rp
200,000 a month while a coffee farmer may earn as much as one
million rupiah a month.