Kuningan farmers uproot coffee plants
Nana Rukmana, The Jakarta Post, Kuningan, West Java
Frustrated by declining coffee prices, many farmers in West Java are now cutting down their coffee plants and replacing them with vegetables and other crops in order to survive.
The cutting down of coffee plants has been underway for the last week in Dharma subdistrict in the West Java town of Kuningan, where growers are removing coffee plants from more than 100 hectares of farmland.
The Jakarta Post observed on Tuesday that many of the frustrated farmers were planting rambutan trees on their plots instead.
The felled coffee plants are generally those of over 15 years of age.
Some coffee growers in Kuningan said they could no longer rely on coffee as their principal source of income as a result of the drastic fall in coffee prices on the national and international markets.
"The profit we get is extremely small. The price is much lower than normal. Before it drastically dropped, coffee was selling for Rp 8,000 per kilogram. But the price has now dropped to Rp 3,000 per kilogram as a result of excess world production," said Sukarna, a 44-year-old coffee grower in Dharma.
A fellow grower, Abdulrachman, 42, voiced a similar grievance, saying he could no longer rely on coffee as a mainstay.
"Based on our calculations, growing coffee given the current situation is uneconomic as coffee growers have to include planting and other costs in the equation," he said.
Ading Sukmawan, 53, another local coffee grower, admitted he still did not know what had caused coffee prices to drop so dramatically in Kuningan.
He said he used to be visited by coffee buyers from the neighboring towns of Cirebon, Tasikmalaya and Ciamis, as well as further afield.
"But, these buyers have not been coming here for the last three years," he added.
Head of the Kuningan forestry and plantation office Slamet A. Wastra confirmed on Tuesday that massive uprooting of coffee plants was occurring in his locality.
He told the Post that many coffee growers had turned to more profitable crops.
"The coffee plantations in Kuningan cover about 1,600 hectares and are mostly located in the subdistricts of Subang and Dharma," he said.
According to Slamet, the local coffee growers were frustrated after continually suffering losses over the last few years.
"The price of coffee fluctuates very easily. However, this time the fall has been drastic, making growers frustrated and encouraging them to cut down their plants," he said.
He did not specify the amount of the losses incurred by local coffee growers.
Slamet said the fall in coffee prices was partly the result of booming production in Lampung province.
Lampung is the nation's largest coffee producing area with an annual output of at least 63,280 tons. It is home to 126,429 growers who farm around 135,477 hectares of coffee.
Nevertheless, the coffee growers in Lampung have also been complaining of falling prices.
Many of them have even begun to consume what is locally known as tiwul (food made from dried cassava according to traditional methods), instead of rice.