Oyos Saroso,
Sumberjaya, West Lampung
A number of factors have contributed to the success of the agroforestry system in West Lampung, which is one of the country's major coffee producing areas.
Coffee -- particularly the robusta variety -- remains the regency's major commodity, accounting for 65 percent of the robusta coffee production in the province.
Farmers in West Lampung have been growing coffee on private plantations and on communal land before and after the 365,000 hectares of hills and forests spanning Tanggamus, West Lampung, and Kaur regency were declared a protected public forest.
What arouses greater concern, however, is the illegal logging of centuries-old trees in the national park, which risks the livelihoods of farmers in the coastal area of Krui, West Lampung. None of the tycoons behind West Lampung's illegal logging industry have been arrested so far.
"In fact, the Krui people have grown resin-producing trees for centuries. Formerly, anyone caught felling a resin-producing tree was subjected to a fine. These species' resin production has provided a sustainable source of income for the local community and has also become one of the country's agroforestry success stories," said Joko Santoso, an environmentalist with Lampung Forest Watch (LFW).
Kurniadi of the Association of Resin Producing Communities said illegal loggers could get Rp 150,000 on average for the trunk of a resin-producing tree, most of which are centuries old and over a meter in diameter. They will then saw the trunk into four sections, selling each for Rp 500,000.
Nonetheless, farmers in several parts of West Lampung have developed other kinds of agroforestry.
Instead of resin-producing trees, some villages in Sumberjaya and Way Tenong districts have made coffee their main crop. But even if coffee prices fall, farmers will not be out of business because they can still harvest areca nuts, candle nuts, durians, bananas, beans and other secondary crops.
Unlike the resin-based agroforestry in Krui with its trees grown mostly on communal land, coffee agroforestry usually utilizes state-owned land. The critical state property is managed by local residents under an agreement through the community forest program. Also called wana tani (forest village farming), agroforestry is a natural resources management system that combines forest or tree management with short-term plant or agricultural crop cultivation.
Models of agroforestry range from the simple combination of a crop or tree species and several agricultural commodities, to a complex mix of various tree species and diverse agricultural crops. In Tribudisyukur village, Sumberjaya district, for instance, local farmers also grow candle nuts, durians, pepper, areca nuts and papaya in addition to coffee as their core commodity.
Agroforestry crop variations normally combine perennial crops with seasonal or short-term agricultural commodities, main crops as food sources or economic commodities with auxiliary crops, productive crops with supporting plants -- like coffee or cacao with shade trees -- and also mix various seasonal crops or those with different harvest times like rice, cucumbers, coffee, resin and durians.
"With such diverse crops and varying harvest times, farmers will be reaping their crops throughout the year," said Rama Zakaria, director of the Nature and Environment Lovers Family Circle (Watala).
After assisting West Lampung farmers for almost 20 years, Watala has found out that agroforestry can be a solution to poverty: "It's a fact that lots of farmers around forests in Indonesia are structurally poor. But those in Sumberjaya and Way Tenong, West Lampung, prosper through agroforestry".
source: The Jakarta Post, Sept 10, 2007
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