Pontianak's mandarin growers feel the big squeeze

By R. Masri Sareb Putra

SAMBAS, West Kalimantan (JP): Those unfamiliar with West Kalimantan often assume its famed Pontianak mandarin oranges really do come from the provincial capital.

But the heart of the sector once beat in Sungai Raya and Tebas subdistricts in Sambas district, 243 km to the north of Pontianak.

Sambas was formerly one of the largest contributors to West Kalimantan's agricultural success. Home to close to 90 percent of about 24,000 hectares of groves in the province, there were 24,271 families working as growers in Sambas.

Most of these were Chinese-Indonesians who enjoyed a good life year-round from their harvests. Satellite dishes dotted their yards, and motorbikes and automobiles were parked in front of their homes.

"In the heyday of orange growing in 1992, duties imposed on this agricultural commodity could reach Rp 1.6 billion," Sambas district head Tarya Aryanto said.

That year, the region's 14,756 hectares of groves produced more than 236,000 tons of the fruit. The next year, an ominous decline started, with production of 206,500 tons.

The rot set in. Production was 128,000 tons in 1994 and 83,500 tons the following year. In an amazing reversal of the good times, it was a paltry 37 tons by 1996.

A sorry fall for a product that had kept markets in this subdistrict town busy from dawn to dusk.

The capitals of Pemangkat, Sungai Raya and Tebas subdistricts never slept. Coffee houses, foodstalls and movie theaters were always crowded with those involved in the sector.

Groves employed many people, either directly, such as the pickers, sorters and transportation workers who set them off to their destination in Jakarta, and indirectly through fertilizer suppliers and others.

"We worked nonstop day and night, or else the oranges could not be dispatched in time," said Aseng, a grower in Tebas.

"We always chose oranges which were just ripe, to ensure they were not overripe when they reached Jakarta," he said, adding that the journey to the national capital could take as long as a week.

Trade control

A shadow has eclipsed the golden days for the growers.

It began when West Kalimantan Governor Aspar Aswin issued a decree to control the trade in 1993. This was introduced, the administration said, in an attempt to boost growers' income and welfare. Growers did not protest.

In practice, it dealt the death blow to their livelihoods.

The highest price was fixed at the growers' level, unlike rice and unhusked rice in which the floor price is fixed.

A consortium was set up, made up of three giant companies based in Pontianak, which served to control prices.

The Orange Trade Control Coordinating Board (BKTNJ) has encountered its share of ups and downs. Members reportedly jostled for power to grab the monopoly over the entire orange business in West Kalimantan.

Growers were the unwitting victims. They could no longer market their own produce outside the system determined by the consortium. If they attempted to do so, growers claim they risked stringent measures from security forces.

Ironically, when there was a bumper harvest, the consortium argued it was unable to accommodate purchases of the yield. Warehouses and transportation vessels were in the same poor situation. Interisland traditional trade was prohibited and, as a result, fruit was left to rot on trees.

But the consortium would also only purchase small quantities when the harvest was poor, Aseng said.

"They seemed to evade their obligations. In the meantime, in fact, the price of Pontianak oranges in Jakarta was soaring," he said.

A kilogram cost Rp 6,000 in a Jakarta supermarket but in Sambas they were just Rp 2,500. During a bumper harvest, people were free to eat as many of the fruit as they wanted from the trees.

Legislators may have finally heard the pleas of the Sambas growers.

Hamzah Has, a House member from the United Development Party and West Kalimantan native, had proposed that trade control practices of BKTNJ should be reviewed because they were hurting the growers.

This led to revocation of the gubernatorial decree on Jan. 29.

It was probably too little, too late. Ninety percent of the plants in Sambas have been destroyed by blight. Groves on both sides of the Singkawang-Sambas road, previously an expanse of green, are today darkened fields of weeds.

"We are helpless and no longer interested in taking care of our trees," said Syahzaman, a former grower from Jelutukung, Pemangkat.

He said 80 percent of his 3,000 trees had been destroyed by disease.

Now he is dealing in timber, another major product of the province.

In its Regional Development Strategy, the provincial administration no longer relies on mandarins as its prime earner. Plywood is the substitute.

In 1994, plywood exports from the province were recorded at US$415.33 million, reaching $379.12 million the following year, accounting for 64.56 percent and 37.03 percent of the province's total commodity exports in those years.

Receipts from duties on the mandarins have slipped off. In 1995, they were Rp 1.6 billion, but they had dropped to only Rp 750 million the following year, from 50,000 tons of mandarins at Rp 15,000/kg.

With most groves standing idle, laid to waste by blight or abandonment, West Kalimantan's growers hold little hope in their once prized fruit.