Not an Elegy…

KOMPAS/RIZA FATHONI

A worker lays tea leaves out to dry on 27 Jan. 2019 at Pasir Canar tea factory in Jayagiri, Sukanagara, Cianjur regency, West Java.

The area of smallholder tea farms has been shrinking thousands of hectares over the past decade. However, this condition does not signify an end to these farms. Hope for the future of the country’s tea industry is still alive and well at these smallholder farms.

Smallholder farms comprise most of the tea plantations in Indonesia, covering 52,156 hectares (50 percent) of tea plantations in the country in 2018. Smallholder tea farms comprise a much vaster area than state-owned plantations (26,788 ha) and private plantations (25,476 ha).

Despite this, smallholder farms contribute just 35 percent of national tea production.

Smallholder farms also produce less tea per hectare on average compared to state-owned or private plantations. In 2018, smallholder tea farms produced 1.4 tons of dry tea per hectare from mature plants, while state-owned plantations produced 1.8 tons of dry tea per hectare and private plantations 1.5 tons of dry tea per hectare.

Contraction

Another problem is that smallholder tea farms in Indonesia are shrinking. Over a single decade, the area of all smallholder tea farms declined from 57,126 ha in 2009 to 52,156 ha in 2018. Productive tea farms in West Java shrank in 2009-2018 by 15 percent to 4,905 hectares.

KOMPAS/RIZA FATHONI

A tea picker uses a sickle to harvest leaves on 27 Jan. 2019 at a plantation in Cijeruk kampong, Sukamekar, Sukaraja district, Sukabumi regency, West Java.

This has raised the alarm for the tea industry in Indonesia. West Java province has the largest area of smallholder tea farms at 44,890 ha, equal to 86 percent of all smallholder tea farms and 43 percent of all tea plantations in Indonesia.

These smallholder farms cover a greater area of the province than large state-owned plantations (15 percent) and private plantations (18 percent) in West Java.

Hope

This condition should not necessarily turn into an elegy, as hope still remains for the smallholder tea farm sector, particularly in terms of productivity.

Average production at smallholder tea farms have increased annually in terms of productive plants. Productive tea plants yielded 1.1 tons of tea leaves per hectare in 2009, which increase to 1.5 tons per hectare in 2018.

The increase in the average tea production at smallholder farms is directly proportional to the increase in total production of all smallholder tea farms in West Java. While the province recorded just 36,556 tons of tea per hectare in 2009, by 2018 the figure had climbed to 41,928 tons per hectare.

Unfortunately, the increase in production output is not consistent. For instance, West Java’s smallholder farms produced 42,453 tons per hectare in 2013, an increase of just 666 tons since 2010. In 2014, production output declined by 2,050 tons to 40,403 tons, and then increased again in 2018 to 41,928 tons.

Heri Juhaeri, a West Java tea farmer and trader, is one industry player who has felt the impacts of the fluctuating production output of smallholder farms. Heri collected 269 tons of fresh tea leaves from farms across West Java in 2011, and collected 415 tons of fresh leaves in 2015.

But in 2018, Heri collected only 239 tons of fresh tea leaves, a decrease of 42 percent compared to 2015.

KOMPAS/RIZA FATHONI

A worker secures a bundle of freshly harvested tea leaves and shoots on 27 Jan. 2019 at a plantation in Cijeruk kampong, Sukamekar, Sukaraja district, Sukabumi regency, West Java.

Another challenge is the selling price. Supian Munawar, a tea farmer in Cisurupan of Garut, West Java, said that the government should restructure the price of tea, as the tea produced by smallholder farms was still underpriced at around Rp 2,400 per kilogram in June 2019. In fact, from the 1980s to the early 1990s, the price of 1 kilogram of tea equaled the price of 1 kilogram of rice with several side dishes.

Improving the quality of tea production in line with the increase in quantity is needed to increase the selling price at the farm level. Doing so would help smallholder farms become the leading producers of quality tea in Indonesia, causing a domino effect that would lead to the improved welfare of tea farmers.

(DEDY AFRIANTO/Kompas Research & Development Division)