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.

August in Simpang Jernih: the harvest season begins with great training and healthy trees

Robert’s been helping some of the farmers with some early harvests these past weeks—Aceh Timur has begun the season, which is a long one due to the variation in elevation and temperature on the farms, even though they’re quite close together.   

The rainforest has its own micro-climate and really affects when and how the cocoa ripens.  Speaking of the forest, the monkeys are really at it this year, due in part to the drought that has pushed them out of the forest to look for other food, and finding their absolute favorite (cocoa), the farmers and their families have been run ragged trying to keep them away from the trees.  But look at these babies!  This is what organic fertilization and pesticide can do to a tree’s production in just one year!

Both Pante Kera and Simpang Jernih farmers received their 6^th training in August, under the Local Community Grant from the Embassy of Finland.  (Yay, Finland!)

This time, three trainers were on hand to discuss proper seedling planting, paying special attention to tree placement in relation to shade trees, and how to measure correct distances from shade trees to allow for the cocoa tree’s growth. 

 Farmers still have about 500 trees that were grown in the nursery early this year, and in the coming weeks, in addition to the harvest, they’ll be planting these new trees in the perfect spots for them to be as productive as possible.   

Add to that their grafted branches from superior varieties, and cocoa production should really soar.   

 Robert and the farmers have a harvest chart that tracks production so at the end of this harvest we’ll be able to see what percent increase they realized.  






 I think everyone’s going to be happy!

Back from Ramadan . . . and into the cocoa fields with GPS in hand

The farmers (and Robert) had a much-needed break during the Eid holidays that ended last week, but time and cocoa wait for no man (or woman) so Robert returned to Aceh Timur, where all was once again a flurry of activity, with big healthy seedlings being delivered from the nursery into the cocoa fields.

Our goal is for every farmer to have at east 400 cocoa trees per hectare of land, and most have between ½ and 2 hectares (about 1 -5 acres) which is actually quite a lot of cocoa, once the grafted branches start producing.  One of these varieties can produce up to 40 kilos per tree per harvest!  We aren’t going to get quite that much, but the clones that the women are now using will be a big improvement.

Also this week was the introduction of a tiny new gizmo—the Garmin GPS,  which Robert will use to teach the farmers how to plot out their own farms.  This is quite useful in terms of making sure exactly where boundaries are in terms of the rainforest/protected area, as well as plotting the location of all the trees and the dates of their planting, and other useful information that aids in record-keeping.

Obviously this is not a traditional farming activity!  Most of the women keep all the information about the trees, the harvest, the amount of fertilizer/pesticide they use on each tree, etc. in their heads.  JMD has tailored its trainings to suit the education/literacy levels of the farmers, so far with good results.  But into every successful small business a little paperwork must fall, and we are hoping that the fledgling association can maintain some rather “modern” record-keeping in terms of GPS tracking, nursery inventory, and plantation mapping, because when they get bigger . . . they are going to be surprised at how useful written records can be!

Aceh Timur: rural and isolated . . . but very busy this month!

Junaidi and Robert found out that there’s another Rohingya refugee camp set up now, in a town in Aceh Timur between Idi (the capital) and Langsa (in North Sumatra) and Robert’s going to stop in on his way to Simpang Jernih  see the cocoa farmers.  The camp in Lhokseumawe (and don’t ask me how long it took me to learn to spell that) is 7 hours from Banda Aceh, and ever further from Simpang Jernih because of the lack of roads, so it wasn’t really feasible for us to go there unless specifically requested.

 

But the proximity of this camp to JMD’s projects, combined with the fact that eventually some of these people may need livelihoods training, prompts a site visit.  So I’m eagerly awaiting Robert’s trip in a few days.

In the meantime, despite an extremely windy season which destroyed one of the nurseries in Pante Kera (as I mentioned earlier) the women managed to save all the plants and are busy preparing to rebuild.

Here is Ibu Aminah, one of JMD’s star farmers, bringing her 56 new cocoa trees from the nursery to harden off in her yard.

Aminah finished planting her trees and intercropped with rice.  All the women cocoa farmers supplement their incomes with rice, and planting month was last month.  These women never stop working.  Right now the mature trees are flowering so it’s time to get everyone they can to join "monkey patrol” around the perimeter.

 

And look how great these side grafts are doing!  I think they will be bearing fruit by next year.

Grafting success!

I don’t know abut you, but I have tried to graft fruit trees before, and it is an art.  I am not very good at it.  But the women of Simpang Jernih and Pante Kera (and our new cocoa farmers from Batu Sumbang) are practically Grand Champions.  80% of the grafts they did on their old plantation trees survived.

Here’s what the grafts look like after 2 months:

This is one of he superior varieties purchased through the Local Community Fund grant (Yay Finland!) and you can see how it’s just sproinging into action, and hopefully will be producing fruit by next year.  This means that this old tree can now start to be far more productive.  The issue in Aceh Timur is not the lack of (former) cocoa farms but the age and condition of those trees that remain on them.  A hybrid variety, grafted onto “rootstock” like in the photo below, can practically double the yield of an old tree.  Add to that the weeding and fertilizing the farmers now complete regularly, and you have economic success just round the corner.

But it is really hard work, and every time of year brings its own challenges.  Last season was the rain, now it’s the loose domestic animals. Pretty soon it will be my personal worst nemesis: monkeys.  You don’t see a big return from cocoa, not for the first 18 months.  Which is far too long for many families to have to wait to get enough money to eat.  JMD can help, with the Ministry of Agriculture, by giving families crop seeds to interplant, so they will have some food for their families plus (maybe) a little cash from the surplus, but the cocoa is really where an improved standard of living comes in.

Now is the point in the project where we really have to keep the farmers motivated.  It’s a big hump to get over.  I hope that the women’s success with their grafted trees will convince them to keep the faith.  “Sustainability,” after all, comes down not to a well-designed “logic model” but the motivation and commitment of the people who have to live here.

Update from Simpang Jernih

Junaidi just got back from doing some project monitoring in Simpang Jernih this week, and as far as I can tell he has nothing but good news to report.  Now that the rains have gone everyone’s applying fertilizer (they had to wait till a little later this year because of so much rain).  The project is now reporting a 65% organic fertilizer rate, which is pretty incredible.

Also, the rain held up a bit of the nursery grafting so the women got busy in their plantations and did 200 side grafts.  

Nursery work is hard and sometimes frustrating—all those little plants, so cute, so ready to drop dead at a moment’s notice—so the women in Pante Kera are taking extra care to replicate the good luck their colleagues in Simpang Jernih have had with a simple daily weeding schedule that keeps moisture down and doesn’t exhaust anyone.

And, of course, the cocoa trees are just beginning to flower so that means it’s monkey season (would you expect less from Pante Kera, which means, basically “the monkeys are on the riverbank”?) and farm families are now stepping up their perimeter patrols.

 This fellow might stay put in the forest if illegal logging didn't drive him farther towards the perimeter . . .

Actually, it’s Grand Central Station in the plantations this time of year, with wild pigs and loose goats nibbling at low branches (first lesson of Aceh propagation: graft higher than a goat’s head).  But Junaidi reports good things: the women are still motivated, thanks in large part to Robert, and they seem to be making lots more decisions independently.  Which is good for the sustainability of the project.  When it ends in 2016 they will hopefully have had enough of a taste of economic self-sufficiency to not only keep their business going but act as the “base” for what we hope will be other groups around the district that JMD can persuade to join the association.

Here’s hoping!

Calling all journlists: contribute to the 2016 Palm Oil Report!

Our friends at the conservation news site Mongabay announced their 2016 reporting series on palm oil  with a call to journalists to pitch stories regarding the palm oil trade and its effects on natural resources, political and economic stability, and human rights.

http://mongabay.org/programs/special-reporting-initiatives/sri-opportunities/mongabay-reporting-network-palm-oil/?utm_source=MRN%3A+Indonesian+Fisheries&utm_campaign=MRN+Indo+Fisheries&utm_medium=email

They list about a hundred questions to pique a journalist’s interest, on topics including activism, labor rights, biofuels, governance, legality, fiscal policy, sustainability promises, food security, and the impact on ecosystems.

We’ve asked a couple of our journalist colleagues if they want to participate in this; Mongabay also asks for feedback from local NGOs regarding field-based observations, and one of the questions they ask is something I’ve never considered before.

• Are natural forest areas surrounding plantations suffering from edge effects, incursions of invasive species or degradation from displacement of wildlife and movement or foraging species like pigs?

JMD and the women cocoa farmers have been extremely successful in reducing the amount of damage caused by pests and diseases.  The “pests” in question are primarily monkeys and pigs (I’ve talked about this in previous posts.)  Nearly round-the-clock perimeter checks of the farms during pre-harvest season has helped salvage a lot of what used to be lost, but it’s exhausting work and the farmers have complained that there just seem to be more and more monkeys and pigs.  And now we know why: these animals are being displaced from other parts of the forest as the palm oil plantations burrow further and further into protected and public land. Robert and Junaidi predict that the elephants will start to come out of the forest next—and there’s no chasing them back where they came from.

We’re going to see if Mongabay is interested in this angle; it’s just another way that the palm oil plantations destroy the opportunity for any other small and medium-scale carbon-neutral livelihood to succeed in this part of Aceh.  Foraging animals have always been a problem, but palm oil has tripled the problem.  Hopefully these articles will help stem the expansion of what is truly an environmental disaster.

How are the new grafted trees and seedlings? I’m glad you asked!

After two weeks in Banda Aceh completing training and progress reports, Robert headed back to his second home in Simpang Jernih to see how the new grafts done by the women during training were holding up.

 Here he is, headed back up the river

 

And I’m happy to report that in all three nurseries with a total of 670 but and top grafts, 40% have successfully “taken,” and the remaining 60% are still in the running but will need a few more days to make sure the graft is holding.

60% of the 320 side grafts on mature trees in the field were also successful.

Those are pretty great results.

So this week Robert and the women will do another 150 side grafts and 210 bud/top grafts in the nursery.

Next: how JMD is doing in its quest to get funding from one of the 4 billion RFPs it has answered. 

Hint: it's not for lack of trying!!

A new crop of grafting experts emerges in Aceh Timur

As I’ve said many times before here, grafting of any type is an art form.  And cocoa grafting is especially challenging, since the places where cocoa grows best are not necessarily greenhouse-like conditions.  But the women of Simpag Jernih, Pante Kera and Batu Sumbang proved equal to the challenge and during the week-long training grafted hundreds of buds and branches onto both nurser rootstock and mature trees in their fields.

The trainer held the training twice, in two different locations, for the convenience of the farmers, to eliminate additional boat trips between villages.

The trainings covered many aspects of a successful grafting process.  JMD has given this training before, but refreshers are always needed; this is one of the most important, and difficult skills foe a successful cocoa farmer to master.

There was a little classroom presentation, in which Robert assisted:

And a bit of field-based explanation prior to the practicum:

Then the farmers went straight to the nursery to learn the proper way to prepare the shoots for grafting, and the tree or seedling for accepting the graft

Robert also took a short video of the women practicing grafting the rootstock in the nursery, that JMD willl post to its Facebook Page (unfortunately it is too big to load onto this page; we're just learning abou t how to control the file size of videos).  Even if you don’t understand Acehnese or Bahasa you can tell they are having fun; one of the great things about this project is that it takes skills the women already possess (their ability to do very delicate and exacting work with their hands) and transfers it to an economically viable livelihood. 

Each woman has been given grafting tools and tape by the program, and did many top and bud grafts in the nursery, onto which were placed plastic baggies for added protection.

Grafts in the farmers’ plantations required training in side grafting and protection.

This is the first training that our three new farmer beneficiaries, from Batu Subang, were attending.

And it’s also the beginning of a “training of the trainer” for a farmer in Pante Kera, who’s been very successful on her own farm and will act as a peer mentor to her colleagues

Was this a great training or was this a great training? 

.

The women work together to distribute fertilizer as another cocoa cultivation season begins

Last week the women  cocoa farmers finished their fifth training in the series funded by the Embassy of Finland. (Yay, Finland!)  Robert has taken some amazing photos of the bud and stem grafting practicums, which I’ll post as soon as we receive them.

Before the training, however, Santa came early to Simpang Jernih and Pante Kera, in the form of pre-made organic fertilizer and a growth/pest-control hormone that we are trying like mad to analyze to see how we can make it ourselves.  The contents are a more heavily guarded secret than Kentucky Fried Chicken.  But a trip to the university lab might be able to crack it.  We’ll see. The object of the project, after all, is to provide the women with the information necessary to make all their fertilizer and pest control products at home, from things pretty much lying around the house or farm or, in rare cases, easily purchased at a local shop.

First thing the women had to do when the fertilizer arrived at Simpang Jernih was to load half of it on the trusty river raft (rebuilt and safely re-tethered to its iron cable after the rainstorms and flooding of last month) for the trip to Pante Kera (and our new 4-farmer village of Batu Sumbang—woo-hoo!).

At the home of one of the cocoa farmers in Pante Kera, Robert distributed the liquid fertilizer/hormone to the group.

Here’s the association’s warehouse, complete with nifty sign indicating their name (Pilar Tani) and location.  The elected Chair of the association is making sure that each woman gets the right amount of fertilizer.  Few women in Aceh want to draw attention to themselves by acting and being seen as leaders, but this association is an exception, and JMD is working with the more outspoken and confident members to encourage other women to share in association decisions and act as peer trainers.

 

Of course, when it rains it pours and when it doesn't it's dry as a bone, so the application of fertilizer is going to have to wait a bit until the area gets a bit more rain.  No wonder the world is experiencing a cocoa shortage-- it's the toughest job around!