Coffee farmer Eko Yudi Sukriyanto from Wonosari hamlet, Sukodono village, Dampit district, Malang regency, holds red and green coffee beans from his coffee plantation in Malang regency on Sunday (21/5/2017). Higher quality and pricier coffee comes from red-colored coffee beans.
“If you want to go quickly, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together.” The African proverb is quite suitable to illustrate the world of coffee in Malang Raya, East Java, in recent years. Locals join hands in implementing a just and fair coffee business for farmers, traders and consumers.
“We don‘t dry coffee beans on the cement floor or on the ground because the coffee, like a sponge, absorbs the smell around it. We don’t want our coffee to be contaminated with the smell of cement or soil," said Eko Yudhi Sukriyanto, a coffee farmer in Wonosari, Dampit district, Malang regency, on Saturday.
Sukri’s coffee drying place in Dampit was built 1.5 meters high so the coffee beans would be free from contamination. If the coffee beans are dried carelessly, the taste will be different.
Sukri understood that coffee is of good quality not only because of a good harvest, but also because of a good post-harvest processing, which starts from the selection of good beans, a good fermentation and sterile drying.
Such understanding is shared by the 125 farmers in the village of Sri Mulyo, Sukodono and Baturetno (Sridonoretno) in the Dampit district. They work together in a group and have successfully promoted the Sridonoretno coffee. They produce 500 tons of coffee per year, seven tons of which are produced through good agricultural practices.
The Sridonoretno farmers group received the knowledge from the Alliance of Indonesian Farmers (API). The farmers were trained by the association’s personnel including the API’s secretary-general, Muhammad Nuruddin, and members Dery "Menel" Pradana, Demsi Danial and Edi Sasono. Menel is a graduate of the School of Agriculture of the University of Brawijaya, Malang. Edi and Demsi are social activists.
The involvement of the four men was, in fact, accidental. Menel often hung out in a coffee shop and made friends with coffee lovers and coffee traders. His concern arose when he found out that that price of the local coffee is so low.
The people still rely mostly on the packaged coffee from factories and had never tried the local coffee of Dampit, which in the Dutch era was internationally recognized because of its good flavor.
That is why they were determined to go to Dampit. "We went there two years ago and saw that a lot of coffee beans in the area were poorly processed. This makes the prices so low. The Dampit coffee is often mixed with coffee beans from other places and given a new label. It makes the Dampit coffee no longer as good as in the colonial era," Mena said.
When they began to work, they had the challenge of changing the myth of coffee cultivation: for example, that yellow coffee beans are better because they are heavier than the red ones.
To dispel the myth, Menel lived in the village for a year so that he could meet the farmers daily and could teach them how to produce good coffee.
Menel and friends also asked farmers to weigh red, yellow and green coffee beans, respectively. One kilogram of red coffee beans consists of 505 beans. The yellow coffee beans with the same weight consist 540 beans, or 600 beans for each kilogram of green coffee beans. It means that red pickled coffee beans are heavier than yellow ones. The myth that is yellow beans are better than the red ones gradually disappeared.
"Every day I drink coffee at least six times. I also met other groups of farmers to promote the importance of good coffee practices. This is carried out by asking the farmers to taste their own coffee. After two years of learning, they understand how to distinguish coffee of good and bad quality, " Menel said.
In addition to promoting good coffee cultivation practices, Menel and his colleagues also promoted coffee education through a coffee school. The school of coffee has been open since March 2016. On Saturday, dozens of people gathered at the Kompas regional office in Malang to learn about coffee. Those present were farmers, farmer associations, coffee shop owners, academics and residents.
If the training for good coffee cultivation is intended for farmers, the coffee school is for consumers. Initially, there were only two students, but now they are countless. Some of the people who learned about coffee continued to study it at a coffee academy and became coffee tasters.
At the coffee school, the coffee shop owners were also asked to determine their own coffee prices based on the purchasing prices and the cost of sorting coffee beans. The beginner seller mostly spends one and a half hours to sort one kilogram of coffee beans. That long time could be used to serve dozens of coffee cups.
With that effort, the Dampit coffee price rose from Rp 18,000 to between Rp 23,000 and Rp 30,000 per kilogram.
Nuruddin said, from the beginning farmers were invited to work together and to form a joint marketing effort. "Coffee is managed together, marketed together and the benefits are shared," he said.
The coffee farmer empowerment program carried out in Malang could be used as a model of sustainable agriculture development in other areas. With this awareness, a cup of coffee with a good quality can be much more powerful. The coffee cannot only be enjoyed by the buyers, but also can benefit owners and coffee shops and coffee farmers.
