TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Hundreds of coffee trees grow on a plot of land at the periphery of the forest in Kahayya village, South Sulawesi. The trees belong to Ansar, a local coffee farmer who has been growing coffee his whole life. The 32-year-old owns a total of one hectare of land, but some of the trees are located inside the forest under the shade of larger trees.
Ansar began helping his parents at the farm when he was a child. What he knew about growing coffee was limited to what his family had taught him. He did not know how to properly process coffee beans and would sell them at low prices to middlemen. Unhusked beans, for example, would be sold at Rp5,000 per liter.
But in 2015, Ansar received training from the Sulawesi Community Foundation (SCF), a non-profit organization that focuses on sustainable natural resources management. His coffee beans are now processed into high-quality beans. Ansar can sell his unhusked beans for Rp10,000 per liter. "Now the price is higher, although there are fluctuations," Ansar said.
Ansar, who is also the head of a farmers’ group in Kahayya village, said the training was a little difficult at first. But he was determined to improve his coffee production and motivate all 30 members of his group.
In a year, Ansar can produce approximately one ton of unhusked coffee beans. But there is also the problem of aging trees with less yield. SCF assists farmers by teaching them how to cultivate coffee and restore aging plants. "That was the latest training I received. It was useful because so many of my trees are aging," he said.
Ansar hopes that armed with his new knowledge, he will be able to gain access to a larger market for his coffee. Because of a spike in demand, he is motivated to continue increasing his production and is now planting more trees on his land.
SCF’s program in the Kahayya village began in 2014, with the intention to encourage more social inclusion in the secluded village. Naufal Ahmad, SCF’s program manager for knowledge management and information systems, said the village was underdeveloped because of its geographical location.
SCF discovered that many of the villagers had been growing coffee in Kahayya’s forests. Naufal explained that the first thing they had to do was give farmers legal access so that they could manage their forest sustainably according to the community forest scheme.
"We applied for community forest status and the regent issued a permit for four farmers’ groups to manage 420 hectares of forest for growing coffee," he said.
At first, SCF did not place a special focus on coffee since some villagers were also planting passion fruit and nutmeg. But Naufal saw that coffee was the village’s main commodity. In fact, the village was named after coffee. In the local dialect, kaha means coffee and ya means a place. "So Kahayya is a place for coffee," explained Naufal.
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