Pontianak's mandarin growers feel the big squeeze

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.