Slides from a local farmer and member of Akar Tani coffee cooperative in Bantaeng District, South Sulawesi, Indonesia. He describes how the cooperative was formed and the vision for its future.

1. M. Ramli, Akar Tani Cooperative

2. My name is Ramli. I am from
Patteneteang Village of
Bantaeng District, South
Sulawesi. One of the very first
Village Forests in Indonesia is
located in Patteneteang
covering 146 ha of community
forest. I am a coffee farmer
and also as the Production
Coordinator for Akar Tani
Cooperative. Since childhood, I
have learnt to grow coffee.
After I graduated from Junior
High School, I started to
manage my own coffee farm
for my small family livelihood.

3. Coffee has been the source of
livelihood for our community since
the Dutch colonialisation era.
Bantaeng at that time was known
as Bontyne. Located 1,200 metres
above sea level, Arabica coffee is
suitable to grow in our land.
However, in the 1990s clove was
introduced and started to become
the more viable source of income
alternative compared to coffee.
Farmers then changed their coffee
with clove even though our area
was not suitable for glove. For
these past two years, we had no
harvest for clove. So for now,
coffee again becomes the main
livelihood for farmers.

4. Challenges faced by farmers were limited
alternatives of market and low price. The
main buyer for our coffee were village
traders who then sold the coffee to city
traders in Makassar. Often, village traders
also practised “Ijon System” where they
gave cash to farmers before harvesting
time and then made a deal on pricing
which was lower then the market price. So,
starting 2011, I tried to look for market in
the city, to sell the coffee to city trader. I
did not have capital but I got the trust from
farmers to take their coffee and sell it to
the city. Still, pricing was uncertain and we
could not bargain as we depend only to city
traders to decide for the price. Besides
facing challenge on market, farmers also
faced the decrease of productivity of coffee
as the on-farm management techniques
were not improved.
Picture: No treatment (pruning) coffee
tree

5. In 2016, I started to see some lights
towards addressing these challenges
when I was involved in Akar Tani
Cooperative which is also supported by
RECOFTC under RAFT program. The
cooperative was established by
BALANG, a local CSO. Farmers can
become the members of the
cooperative. I like their concerns on
social and environment. Their ultimate
aim is to support farmers to have
better livelihood. The cooperative
offers about IDR2000-3000 higher
margin compared to the traders price.

6. The cooperative is doing coffee
processing into green bean and
selling it to roasters in Makassar
who provide supply to coffee shops
in the city. The cooperative sells
specialty coffee and therefore
farmers need to improve the
quality of their coffee and change
some of their normal practices. For
example for harvesting technique,
farmers should pick only the red
cherries; for post harvest, farmers
should change from drying the
coffee on the street to using a
simple green-house for farmers.

7. If we would like to encourage more
farmers to be interested in
business, facilitation and capacity
development are significant. As for
me, I am grateful to get training on
business development. I was
especially very interested in the
business plan development training.
As a farmer, I have never developed
a business plan and also cash flow.
Now, I could calculate production
cost, loss-profit projection, start-up
capital to start a business, including
risk management. I also learnt
about looking at market
opportunities. I never thought that
our coffee could reach wider
market.

8. Having learnt a lot of insights, I
would like also to pass them to
the young generation in our
village. Right now, the youth is
not so interested in farming.
Quite many young people
graduated from high school and
university are not employed.
Therefore, I initiated a farmer
group where we also have
members from the young
people. It aims to encourage
them to learn organisational
skills and also potentially
business development for
coffee. I hope they could see
also the business opportunities.

9. We introduce our coffee with the brand
called Daulu. We are trying to promote Daulu
coffee as the specialty coffee from Bantaeng.
For South Sulawesi coffee, everyone knows
Toraja coffee. We want people to also know
Bantaeng coffee. I participated in several
exhibitions and events both at local and
national levels. The last was PARARA festival
in Jakarta and also recently a cupping event
in Bandung. From such events, my eyes were
open that coffee market is huge. My
confidence was increased and I felt proud
when the people in the city liked the taste of
our Daulu coffee. Akar Tani Cooperative
always shares the story of how our coffee
planted with agroforestry system
contributes also to conserving the forest,
while at the same time providing livelihood
to the people. I want people to know that
when they drink our coffee, they are part of
the solutions to people and forest in our
village. I am now more enthusiastic to
introduce Daulu coffee to everyone.

10. The cooperative efforts to introduce
Bantaeng specialty coffee are greatly
supported by the Distrcit Government. The
government has built a Center for coffee
processing and trust Akar Tani Cooperative to
manage and use all the equipments and
warehouse to process coffee in a larger scale.
The cooperative also builds collaboration
with Farming and Plantation Department to
provide quality seedlings. Both cooperative
and the government are looking forward for
potential collaboration to develop local
seedlings. Despite all the supports we have
received, we are still having difificulties to
access finance to meet the high demand
from potential buyers. The cooperative is
now trying to acess financing from BLU (a
forestry financing agency from Central
Governemnt). It is already in the final review.
Hopefully we will get the financing by early
next month. I do hope and pray for this.
Insha Allah.

11. Getting the financing from BLU
will not be the end but the
beginning. We will still need
capacity development to run the
business. I am confident that the
cooperative will grow if all the
related stakeholders are working
together with us to go through
the process towards running
sustainable business.
Our hope is always simple, that
we could improve our income to
provide well-being for our
family, that the business is
potential for the youth to be
involved , and that our forest is
protected. Thank you.