Hard-working vegetable farmers harvest but middlemen profit

Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Farmers in the capital are ready to supply vegetables to the market after over a month of painstaking efforts to cultivate their plants amid diminishing rains.

The three-week floods, which paralyzed the city in late January and early February, has made the people depend on supplies from Bogor, Cipanas and Sukabumi in West Java.

As the farmers have resumed their activities and the supply of vegetables has also returned to normal, local markets here prefer to take the nearest source rather than transporting the vegetables from out of town.

Farmers are still unable to sell the crops directly to traditional markets as access to the vendors is fully controlled by middlemen.

Ardi -- a 40-year-old farmer of Karawang who has been cultivating a 3,000-square-meter plot of previously idle land for 10 years in Cipinang Muara subdistrict, East Jakarta -- said the middlemen always reduces their profits.

"During rainy days, a bunch of spinach is sold at Rp 2,000 (US cents 20) at the market. But how much do we get? We only receive Rp 1,000. The middlemen take Rp 500 and the trader takes another Rp 500 for their own profit," he said.

"In fact, we could have sold our crops directly to the market, But if we did that, the middlemen would be very angry at us."

Another farmer, Nurhasin, echoed Ardi's statement, saying that the middlemen have always forced them to sell the yields to them.

"A quarter of our income from selling the vegetables goes to the middlemen. They say it is for their marketing service," he said.

Ardi said his middleman had promised to take supplies from his land. He named the middleman as Usub, a 50-year-old businessman from Bogor who controls the production and supply of vegetables on several plots of land across Jakarta.

"He is a regular buyer from similar plots like ours in Pulomas, Kebon Nanas, Pondok Bambu and Cipinang Elok, all in East Jakarta," he said.

Despite the fact that the middlemen control the marketing, the farmers happily greeted the diminishing rains which would enable them to continue farming.

"Finally, we are able to grow our vegetables although it will take longer due to the recent rains. We just began our first harvest cycle," said Ardi, whose vegetables take six weeks to grow, three weeks longer than the regular 20 days prior to the floods. He grows spinach, lettuce, mustard greens and kangkung (water spinach).

Nurhasin, who plows land just hundreds of meters from Ardi's, revealed that the supply of vegetables from several farming areas in Jakarta would soon be available at markets.

"There are many vegetable farmers like us in Cakung, Ciracas and Pondok Gede in East Jakarta, Bekasi and Tangerang," he said.

Nurhasin, who has been cultivating the land for 10 years, admitted he had no idea who owns it now.

"But, I have a notification letter (from the former owner) giving permission to cultivate the land. Previously the land was occupied by squatters," he said.

Ardi and Nurhasin are among farmers who managed to make use of idle land in residential complexes across the city by growing vegetables and supplying markets.