Wonosobo residents rely heavily on tobacco farming

Text and pictures by Ati Nurbaiti

WONOSOBO, Central Java (JP): With August approaching a fervent hope is spreading among tobacco growers in villages across Wonosobo.

If the harvest is good this year a daughter could be married off and another child sent to school.

The long drought last year brought too much sun. A proportion of the harvest was sold for Rp 5,000 (35 U.S. cents) per kilogram but much of it fetched only Rp 3,000 or lower.

Now the problem is too much rain. Heavy rains were still falling every afternoon in early July and farmers were sighing.

"I'll lose three baskets at least," said a farmer in Pagerluhur in the Pagerejo village, Kertek district. He pointed to a field of green plants with their bottom leaves yellowing from too much rain.

Samiadji is among the richest farmers here with a plot of about one hectare -- most have less than a quarter of that -- yielding barely 50 kgs per year.

Big buyers include cigarette manufacturers Sampoerna, Djarum and Bentoel.

He said tobacco plant seeds, producing up to 24 leaves a tree, are much better than those of years gone by when plants had fewer than 12 leaves. However, today's plants are far less resistant to hazards.

Farmers here feel yields may not be sufficient this year to repay their invested capital given the likely bad crops.

The middlemen and factories seem to hold immense power: they set prices and determine whether or not to buy crops. Farmers are familiar with the rule that the total weight of each basket of finely shredded and dried tobacco leaves is reduced by two kilograms -- the weight of each empty basket -- but some say factories and middlemen deduct even more.

On the other hand factory managers and middlemen say they have a hard time selecting the required types of tobacco for different cigarettes.

"If offers (tobacco prices) go too low we might as well burn the crops," says Samiadji, adding this is what he did last year. Farmers feel too much energy goes into the planting, staying up at night to process the dried leaves, fermenting them and finely chopping them at the risk of cut fingers -- only to suffer poor prices, if not rejection.

Production costs are Rp 150,000 per 30-kg basket. Each can yield anywhere between Rp 100,000 or nothing, if the product is rejected.

Wonosobo is only one of the areas supplying the cigarette industry. Statistics reveal that last year it included 5,667 hectares of tobacco, much less than Temanggung, also in Central Java with 20,284 hectares.

In Pagerejo village here, residents revealed the increasingly severe hardships they are facing and their thin hopes of a good harvest.

Few eat rice; they say they are used to eating "corn rice", finely pounded and boiled corn. The reason is financial; at Rp 1,500 per kg, corn is about half the price of uncooked rice.

But the preparation of corn rice, eaten only with meagerly flavored vegetables, takes much more time and energy.

"It (corn rice) stays in the stomach longer," says Tumpuk, a maid, "everyone here works so hard." Besides the pounding of corn, she is referring to the scavenging for and carrying of firewood, working in the fields, feeding cattle, taking crops to market -- all this by walking up and down steep paths.

Meanwhile, prices at Wonosobo market are rising daily by amounts comparable with the metropolitan areas -- frying oil Rp 8,500 per liter, onions Rp 10,000 per kg and pepper Rp 100,000 per kg -- if you can find it.

Cassava disappearing from the fields is nothing new. "Now even rice vanishes from right within the house," a farmer said.

The sense of despair over the crisis became more apparent when nearby villagers held a demonstration at a private tea plantation in the same district. Security personnel at the scene did not prevent the villagers from chopping down several tea trees.

It was not clear whether the villagers, claiming the Dutch colonial rulers had rented their land and never gave it back, were acting on their own free will. "Such a thing has never happened before," one farmer said.

Despite the rain, the only real hope is, again, tobacco. Oblivious of international campaigns against smoking, farmers only know that factory's representatives still scour the mountainous area hunting for the best harvests.

Besides, "we have been growing tobacco since the days of the Majapahit kingdom (in the 14th century)," which included the tobacco areas, said Samiadji, 85.

Samiadji's wife recalls good harvests when, "if you entered the fields your clothes soon became black from the nicotine in the leaves".

Siswowihardjo, another villager, says in his small house, "The yield of the tobacco crop is still a riddle."

For his family, which includes two daughters and grandchildren, there is not much more to rely on as his son-in- law, a construction worker in Bandung, has not sent any news, let alone money, recently. Siswowihardjo has heard of the troubles in the construction business.

Some villagers are lucky enough to work for rich farmers for Rp 4,000 a day. Others keep chicken, to sell the meat or eggs, or a goat or cow of another villager on a profit-sharing basis.

The keeper will seek grass for a year to feed the cow. When it is sold, he will get 50 percent of the profit.

This is usually in the region of Rp 300,000 for a year's work; cow cost around Rp 400,000 and are sold for Rp 1 million.

Women sell mendong leaf mats; a large one, that might take two weeks to weave, goes for Rp 20,000 at the most.

Only one or two residents sell things like porridge at Rp 100 per plastic container. "Money lasts a long time here, there's nothing to buy," a visitor said.

Fair

But when the tobacco harvest approaches, usually every August, outsiders perceive the villagers as rich people. Traders come from various regions, bypass the Wonosobo market and go straight up to the villages on the slopes of Mount Sindoro and Mount Sumbing, and the place suddenly becomes a fairground.

"Cupboards! Mattresses!" says a farmer quoting furniture hawkers. Sellers from the renown shoe center in Cibaduyut, West Java, garment sellers and embroiderers from Tasikmalaya, and traders selling tape recorders and television sets, also struggle up the hill with their wares in hired cars .

"Once a truck full of motorcycles headed up here, they were ordered by residents of a single village nearby," Samiadji's wife said. They seem unconcerned that the bikes will be sold again a few months later at a much lower price to get capital for the next harvest season.

"What's important is that the people have got the taste of riding around on their own bikes, the result of their hard work," she said.

Other tobacco growers resort to borrowing money from the factories and middlemen, knowing full well they will be bound to sell only to their borrowers at whatever price.

When harvests fail, those working for rich farmers will at least still get something for their sweat. "A new sarong for the man, a new kebaya blouse for the woman," farmer Samiadji said.

There is a tiny profit in growing tobacco even if the harvest fails, he says. As the land has been fertilized it is good enough to grow other crops like corn and vegetables, at least for their own kitchens.

So when the fair disappears; the cycle begins again, and the farmers begin hoping for the best for next year.