U.S. grants $1 million to combat cocoa pest

JAKARTA (JP): The United States has agreed to give a $1 million (Rp 9.5 billion) grant to help Indonesian cocoa farmers fight against a pest which is threatening production of one of Indonesia's main export crops.

Alfons Eurling, deputy director of the U.S. Agricultural Cooperative Development International/Volunteer in Overseas Cooperative Assistant (ACDI/VOCA), said on Wednesday the two-year project involved training some 20,000 smallholder farmers in South Sulawesi, Southeast Sulawesi and Central Sulawesi.

The three provinces account for the largest production of Indonesia's cocoa.

The project involved training small farmers in the three provinces the technique of breaking the life cycle of the pest known as pod borer and therefore minimizing infestation of the pest, Eurling told The Jakarta Post.

The program, to be conducted in cooperation with the regional offices of the Ministry of Agriculture, included pruning cocoa leaves, altering traditional harvesting techniques, and sanitation, he said.

The project includes setting up a 400 hectares plantation with 40,000 cocoa trees; half would follow the prescribed program and the other half would use the existing method.

"We expect this method could reduce the infestation rate by up to 40 percent," he said.

The pod borer has been attacking cocoa plantations in Sulawesi since 1991.

Zulhefi Sikumbang, a senior executive at the Cocoa Producers Association (Askindo), said early this month that the pest had attacked at least 70,000 hectares of plantations in Central and South Sulawesi.

If the infestation continues, Indonesia's cocoa bean production could fall by as much as 50 percent in five years time, he said.

Small farmers account for about 380,000 tons of Indonesia's cocoa production of 461,000 tons in 1999. (05)