A farmer harvests nutmeg fruit in Lai village, Central Siau district, Siau Island, Siau Tagulandang Biaro (Sitaro) islands regency, North Sulawesi, Friday (2/6). The Siau nutmeg is one of the highest valued nutmeg varieties on the international market.
The nutmeg of Siau Island, North Sulawesi, is regarded as superior on the international nutmeg market for its strong aroma and high myristicin content. It is more expensive than nutmegs from other areas, which often makes it a target of fakery.
Zaini Usman, 23, inspects a sack of nutmeg that a trader brought to his warehouse in the Pehe industrial area of West Siau district, Siau Tagulandang Biaro (Sitaro) regency, North Sulawesi, in early June. His eyes looked carefully. He grabbed a bunch of nutmegs, brought them up to his ear, shook them and dropped two of them on the floor.
Crack, crack! His right foot crushed open the nutmegs. He picked them up and looked inside. “This one already has insects in it, and this one is not dry enough, it could be ruined by mold,” Zaini said.
He removes the flawed nutmegs. Zaini then checked the other sacks in his warehouse that were offered by traders and farmers. If they make it through the initial selection, a worker will weigh them quickly, determine their price and write it on an information board.
Two other workers, Ahmad Samalam, 41, and Khoirul Fadil, 19, sorts the good nutmegs and puts them in a bucket of water. Then, they select the nutmegs based on quality. Only those that meet the criteria are dried using a drying machine.
Drying is an important part of the post-harvest nutmeg production. During this process, some of the nutmegs are damaged because they are not dry enough. Farmers and traders, like those in Siau, Ternate, Makian and Tidore, usually dry the nutmeg under the sun by placing them outdoors on a tarpaulin or on asphalt roads. The drying process takes 7-10 days, depending on the sun’s intensity.
If it rains, the drying process will take more time. Farmers often incur losses if the nutmeg is damaged. Because it contains moisture, fungus can grow and ruin the nutmeg. Many farmers and traders experience this problem.
Rejection
Aflatoxin, a toxic byproduct of fungi that can cause cancer in humans, is the most common reason for rejection in the nutmeg trade. In many cases, nutmegs from Indonesia are rejected from entering the European Union mainly because of the discovery of aflatoxin in some nutmeg shipments.
The international standard for nutmeg and mace is the ISO 6577:2002. Even though they have their own national standards, European sellers set a higher quality standard, referring to the hygiene specification of the American Spice Trade Association (ASTA). The Handbook of Herbs and Spices notes that the highest volume of complaints concerned aflatoxin (the Netherlands and Japan), salmonella (England) and insects (Unites States).
The high number of requirements set by the food safety authority or the governments of destination countries has forced Indonesia’s nutmeg exporters to work harder. They select mace and nutmeg carefully before they are distributed. If the quality of their commodity leads to a single bad record at the destination country, the exporter will find it difficult to get their commodities into that market again.
However, the work of institutions and the support of quality testing facilities in Indonesia are not yet optimal. Exporters complain of the limited number of test laboratories and the lengthy process for obtaining a food safety certificate. Their aspirations were presented at an Indonesian Spice Council meeting in Jakarta on February 22, 2017.
PT Angpiro Tridaya Nusantara (ATN) operations director Sigit Ismaryanto explained that the Food Safety Competence Authority, for example, typically needed up to 14 days to obtain a sample, followed by 7-10 days of lab tests. This means that sampling, testing and certificate issuance would take more than 20 days, and the export companies would have to start the process all over again if they failed to pass the test.
Indonesia only has two laboratories that have obtained European Union accreditation: the Trade Ministry’s Goods Quality Testing Center in Ciracas, East Jakarta, and PT Angler Biochemlab in Surabaya, East Java. Meanwhile, there are dozens of exporters from Aceh to Papua, and more than 40 containers of nutmegs are shipped to Europe every month.
Failure in this quality assurance process can have multiple impacts for exporters. Apart from losing valuable time, they also have to spend more money for retesting. Indonesia’s carelessness as regards the testing process also puts the nation’s products at risk of rejection for failing to pass the mandatory laboratory test at destination countries.
Upstream target
With conditions as they are now, exporters are targeting cooperation with plantations and farmers to ensure that the nutmegs from the upstream are safe. PT ATN, for example, has decided to build a processing installation and engage in partnership with Siau Island farmers. It is hoped that farmers and traders can understand how to handle nutmeg from when they are still on the trees through to harvest.
In order to produce nutmeg with minimal water content, PT ATN buys nutmegs when they are still “wet” and then dry them in a machine for four days non-stop.
Apart from working with private entities, farmers also try to improve the quality of nutmeg together with the Siau Island Geographical Indication Protection Agency (LPIG). Siau Island has 3,437 hectares of nutmeg plantations, of which 2,000 hectares have produced a harvest. The production of dried nutmeg from the island reaches 5,210 tons per year.
The head of the Siau NutmegLPIG, J Robby Kiwol, added that farmers hoped to make more profit by maintaining their quality and geographical indication certificate. It is hoped that improvements in quality can increase the volume, value and image of Indonesian nutmeg on the global market.
