How to do a REAL cocoa improvement project

A few months ago I posted some information on an international agency that had received 6.7 million in 2008 from the post-tsunami economic development funds to do a massive cocoa improvement project in 5 districts, one of which was Aceh Timur.  Its final report to World Bank indicated that of the over 4,500 farmers the project was going to serve, at least 1,200 were in Aceh Timur. Since JMD had never heard of either the agency or its proposed project, or that there were 1,200 cocoa farmers receiving services in the district in which JMD worked, staff visited the area in 2012 and found . . . goose egg.  No one had received services, promised facilities had not been constructed, the 9 requisitioned vehicles were nowhere to be found, and $6.7 million had disappeared—poof!  like that.

Which is one of the many reasons why my blood boils when I am told that large contracts should only go to “established” international agencies because they are the only ones capable of handling the money.

Well, they handled it all right.

Anyway . . .

What JMD did find in its visit to the northwestern part of Aceh Timur was a 10-village community in the sub-district of Pante Bidari with fertile soil, great conditions, and great potential for growing cocoa, but whose farmers had received no training in how to do really good organic pest management, which makes the difference between weak, scraggly, non-productive trees and the trees we’re now seeing in Simpang Jernih.

Like Simpang Jernih sub district, the communities in Pante Bidari lie on the buffer of the rainforest, and citizens are still recovering from the effects of the 30-year protracted conflict.  So JMD asked its current project donor, the Embassy of Finland’s LCF (Local Community Funds) program, to divert some funding that was to be used for a Rainforest Alliance pre-certification visit and allocate it to a 4-month cocoa improvement project in Pante Bidari.  Unfortunately, as we found out, Aceh Timur is still lagging behind when it comes to cocoa farm certification, and so a visit at this time wouldn’t be too beneficial, since buyers are paying the same amount for uncertified cocoa as they would for certified.  An RA visit is an expensive proposition also, and so the nice people with LCF agreed to allow the transfer so that residents could begin to re-claim the livelihoods their ancestors lost during the conflict.

 Here's a map of Aceh Timur (most of it) showing Pante BIdari.  Simpang Jernih, about 40km south, is the dot right below the magnifying glass and to the right a bit--see how it's right on the river (that you have to cross by raft to get from Simpang Jernih Village to Pante Kera.) Pante Bidari is about 4 hours from  the main road  which should make for easier farm-to-market access, but JMD reports the connector road is still pretty bad.

Our plan is this: JMD is contracting with our very intrepid trainer to conduct 3-day pest-control trainings in 4 separate communities.  These trainings will be similar to the training that farmers received this past summer (weeding, pruning, maintenance for healthy plants, integrated pest management) and include training in how to create liquid organic fertilizer/pest control.

We’re estimating that estimate that 20 cocoa farmers, predominantly women, will attend each training. 

So for a relatively small amount of funding JMD will be able to reach at least 80 farmers, and through one training component they will have tangible evidence that it’s possible to re-establish cocoa farming as economically viable livelihood.  In this way, Aceh Timur district will be closer to the economy of scale necessary for an organic certification process to make an economic difference in the lives of these farmers.

Junaidi and Robert will be traveling to Pante Bidari next week to meet with lots of people, including all the village chiefs (Camats) as well as representatives from the Forestry and Agriculture Department.  Plus (and this is where it gets interesting) they have submitted requests and itineraries to the Aceh Military base and local police departments because (of course!) the bad guy du jour, one Din Minimi, and his band of separatist thugs are said to be holed up somewhere in that very sub district, and gunfire has been exchanged in recent weeks.  I am extremely concerned for the staff’s safety, but I wanted to mention this because this tiny agency is going where no one else dares to, and it can’t even get funding from any international agency (besides LCF) to increase its programming or administration.  World Bank gives $6.7 million to an agency that disappears, but because JMD is local they get bupkus . . . and still they are going to go try to make a difference in the lives of the rural poor in the province where everyone else is too frightened to venture.

I’ll try to post some photos when I get them.  Go to JMD’s website.  Make a donation.  Support this agency and help these cocoa farmers.  This matters.

Din Minimi, ex-GAM freedom fighter, turns thug and loses most of his former support

 In late March I reported on the murder of 2 TNI intelligence officers in Sawang, and the subsequent hunt for who most people thought was responsible: Nurdin Din Ismail, aka Din Minimi.  Minimi is a former GAM separatist who, like many ex-combatants, doesn’t accept that the war is over between those in Aceh who were fighting to return it to a sultanate, and the Jakarta government, who proffered the 2005 Peace Accord shortly after the December 2004 tsunami wiped out over 160,000 Acehnese.  Since first hearing of the murders in Sawang, we’ve been keeping an ear to the ground, and a few days ago learned from JMD staff and local media that Minimi has been tracked to Pante Bidari, Aeh Timur . . . which of course is the proposed site of our cocoa farmer improvement expansion.  We get all the celebrities.

Apparently, Din Minimi has lost most of his former outlaw appeal with the local population, since he and his band of 23 not-so-merry thugs (with 5—count’em-- rifles between them) have managed to piss off just about every household across the district, with their looting and violent mussing-up and general lack of any former populist ideology.  Although Junaidi reports that Minimi has been loudly critical of the current governor (and former GAM member) Zaini.  This is not a new song that GA has sung; from the beginning of the Peace Accord there has been obvious favoritism paid to a few GAM higher-ups at the expense of most of the 10,000 foot soldiers, most of whom continue to live in extreme poverty with no employment prospects while a cadre of their ranking elite run the province and become even wealthier.  In a way, this is smart of Jakarta: as in East Timor, through some skillful political wrangling, the central government can now say of its pesky outlying province: “Hey, don’t blame us—they’re killing themselves.”

Minimi has recently said that if he can speak with the current governor (whose nickname is “Four Eyes,” similar to what the Timorese called their former combatant-turned-Director of Defense Tau Matan Ruak, which means “Eyes in the Back of His Head”), he will personally surrender all his 5 (count’em) guns.

Local news outlet Okezone gve a more complete history of Minimi and the group, two of whom have since been captured and are singing like canaries, although not much new is revealed except that he’s holed up in Pante Bidari and probably did not receive the warmest of welcomes. 

Okezone reports that the Director General of Criminal Investigation of the Aceh police, Sr. Nurfallah, told reporters on Saturday that if Minimi’s men surrender, “with open arms we will receive them and treat them well.  It is good to surrender." Otherwise, “we will continue to pursue Din Minimi until whenever."

Which is probably not so long now, since secessionist ideology, understandable at the outset, has now given way to pure thuggery without much long-term planning, and although Aceh Timur is a close-knit community, it’s not a foolish one.  Hopefully this guy will be out of Pante Bidari by the next cocoa growing season.

http://news.okezone.com/read/2015/07/11/340/1180170/din-minimi-diduga-otaki-pembunuhan-dua-intel-kodim-aceh-utara