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Around 2,000 farmers in Kurima sub-district in the hinterlands of Papua province in Indonesia are reaping the longterm benefits of carrot farming. It has been a slow process, but sweeter times are here to stay.
From distribution of seeds more than 10 years ago, to better farming organization and marketing, the result of the farmers' labour and patience is increased incomes and security.
Usman Wetipo, chairman of Kurima carrot farmers’ association, said the number of farmers has significantly been increasing due to the thriving business.
World Vision Indonesia did not originally introduce carrot farming to this remote area in Jayawijaya highlands. But, since the early 1990s, World Vision has been providing substantial support to the local farmers, including seed distribution, farming training and self-help group organization.
In the 1990s, through World Vision's Women’s and Their Children’s Health (WATCH) project, funded by AUSAid, and on-going Community Development projects, the community received a variety of seeds including carrot, cabbage, potato, onion and corn.
As well as aiming to improve the nutrition status, the WATCH project hoped to attract the male population to farming and reduce the burden of women, explained Susana Srini, former key officer of the project. Men did not want to farm sweet potatoes, the staple food, because it was considered a women’s job.
Usman said carrot and other vegetable farming is now the work of all the family members. “The men, the women and even the children also work at the farm.”
Between 1994 and 1998, the Kurima Community Development project, according to former officer Sukoyo, distributed carrot and other vegetable seeds to help generate more income.
When the WATCH and CD projects closed at the end of the 1990s, World Vision opened the Kurima Area Development Program to facilitate more strategic empowerment programs to help transform the lives of the local people.
The Kurima ADP, funded by WV Austria, continued distributing vegetable seeds during the initial years. It was followed by a series of training for local farmers to improve their knowledge and organization.
“As the number of carrot farmers was rapidly growing, we decided to involve more in advancing their skills instead of distributing seeds,” said Laura Hukom, former manager of the ADP, who was recently transferred to World Vision Jakarta's office.
For example, Usman got the opportunity to join workshops and comparative study visits to the West Sumba ADP in East Nusa Tenggara province to learn about group organization. With that knowledge, he was able to motivate many farmers to be more professional and set up better cooperation. He played an instrumental role when the community and church leaders decided to set up a carrot trading association in May 2005. They unanimously appointed Usman as the association’s chairman.
The association has since arranged the marketing schedule for all the 31 carrot farmers’ groups to ensure sustainable and controlled supply of carrot to the market.
Kurima carrot is very popular because it is sweeter and crunchier compared to carrot from other places. On a typical morning, late May 2008 at the simple carrot market near Kurima, some two to three tons of carrot were bought by buyer agents coming from Wamena city, the capital of Jayawijaya district, about 40 kilometres away.
Some of the carrot will be sold at the markets in Wamena and other neighboring towns and some would be flown to Jayapura, capital of Papua province.
Farmer Edi Matuan of Jagarelo hamlet said the prices of carrot that day were between 6,000 and 7,000 rupiahs (70 to 80 U.S. cents) a kilo. A farmer can sell between 150 and 300 kilos of carrot and earn some 1.0 million to over 1.5 million of rupiahs (US$110 and 165).
“We use the money from carrot and other vegetable to buy clothes, food, young pigs and also to support the schooling needs of our children,” he said. Besides carrots, on a smaller scale, many farmers also grow cabbages, onion, mustard green, string-bean and avocado.
Usman explained more and more children from villages in Kurima have been able to continue their education to colleges in Jayapura and to other islands, such as Sulawesi and Java, due to increasing income from carrot trading.
“I regularly send some money to my niece and nephews currently studying at the universities in Sulawesi and Java,” he said.
For each 50-kilo bag of carrot, the farmer gives 10,000 rupiahs (more than US$1) to the association’s savings. “We now have almost 100 million rupiahs (US$11,000) in the bank,” said Usman. The community would decide next year whether to use the money to buy a car (for carrot or people’s transportation) or to set up a cooperative to supply goods to local community.
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