BARRY CALLEBAUT VISIT WEST SUMATRA24 - 25 March 2014

Text & Graphic by Public Relations Team

text & photographs by public relations & communication team1

1

2 3

5

4

67

3

1: Zaharuddin, SCPP beneficiary from Nagari Kuranji Hulu, Padang Pariaman| 2: Azizah, SCPP female farmer from Nagari Kuranji Hulu, Padang Pariaman| 3: Nasirman [SCPP farmer] and its sidegrafted trunk| 4: Zaharuddin explaining techniques he applied in his cocoa farm to Ani Setiyoningrum and Bakhtiar Bahrim from Barry Callebaut| 5: Ramadhan drying his cocoa beans| 6: Syahrir checking on his cocoa pod | 7: Sa'amar, SCPP farmer from Nagari Sungai SIrah Kuranji Hulu , Padang Pariaman

It was morning-time of 24th March by the time the aircraft that brought Barry Calle-baut (BC) team to Padang landed. After short waiting time at Padang - Minangkabau Airport’ arrival gate, PR team together with Ibu Meri Juli Sianturi [SCPP’s Sumatra Regional Manager] warmly welcomed Barry Callebaut team represented this time by Lachlan Monsbourgh, Bakhtiar Bahrim and Ani Setiyoningrum. Three of them will closely involve with SCPP under Barry Callebaut’s “Cocoa Horizons” sustain-ability activities in Indonesia.

Shortly after, five of us made our way to our first destination to Sungai Geringging Subdistrict in Padang Pariaman District. In this surrounding area, we managed to do laconic visits to seven beneficiaries who reside in two villages nearby.

At the first village of Nagari Kuranji Hulu we visited cocoa farms of Zaharuddin and Azizah. On the spot, BC team had a brief dialogue with the farms’ owners to gather info on how they maintain their farms and its impact on their cocoa productivity. Glanced around at the farm and found there are many young cacao trees that seem healthy and in their productive phase (age 5-10 years) but rehabilitated, BC team marveled and asked the reason of doing so to the farmers. The farmers responded that to boost the yields, they had applied proper techniques of PsPSP [Frequent Harvesting, Pruning, Sanitation and Fertilization] as recommended during the Swisscontact- SCPP Field School, but somehow the trees didn’t produce as expected. This is due to several factors including the unreliable seedling source which not clear the type of the clones and their origins. Therefore, to get out of this unlucky situation farmers decided to increase their productions by rehabilitating their cacao trees with using local superior clones. As they gained info during the FS that

text & photographs by public relations & communication team 2

rehabilitation technology is not only applied on ageing cacao trees, but also can be performed on young cacao trees with the assumption that they cannot produce cocoa pods maximally. Followed then with quick tour of cocoa farms belong to cocoa farmers respectively to Nasirman, Sa’amar, Syahrir, Ramadhan and Elfida situated in the second village of Nagari Sungai Sirah Kuranji Hulu.

During our visit to Pak Sa’amar’s cocoa farm which has some coconut trees as shade trees, we had a chance to see “real monkey business” as a trained pig-tailed macaque monkey picking coconuts and with a twist pulling drop the fruit to the ground. We couldn’t have expected a better refresher as the host served us the healthy clear liquid inside young green coconut that just picked by the monkey harvester.

The next farmer to be visited is Pak Ramadhan. He is one of the benchmark cocoa farmers in the village because he is successful in rehabilitating his unproductive cacao trees and pretty much consistent in maintaining his farm with recommended tech-niques. Next in the agenda, we had a brief meeting with the chairman and the members of “Kecamatan Sungai Geringging“Cocoa Forum. It is planning that this Forum will bridge SCPP farmers, local cocoa trader and Barry Callebaut in the cocoa beans sales chain in Padang Pariaman in the future.

After finishing our errands in Padang Pariaman, we made a three hour ride up to Tanah Datar and stayed overnight there as we had full agenda to do in the area on following day.

SCPP’s PR team often assigned to shine a spotlight on different visitors in different Program’s target areas. This time to SCPP’s youngest target area which meant to be a tourism destination lies on the sixth largest island in the world, Sumatra. This March 2014, Barry Callebaut, potential new player in SCPP, made a two-day visit to West Sumatra precisely to Padang Pariaman and Tanah Datar.

Day One in Padang Pariaman

text & photographs by public relations & communication team3

1: Meri Juli Sianturi and Ani Setiyoningrum checking on cocoa beans quality produced by Pak Ramadhan [SCPP farmer from Rambatan Subdistrict in Padang Pariaman | 2: Ani Setiyoningrum and Bakhtiar Bahrim checking on beans quality traded in Padang Pariaman| 3: Lachlan Monsbourgh fromBarry Callebaut - Cocoa Horizons Sustainable Initiative recommending other local farmers to build sewage between the trees as a drainage to ascertain water supply for the plants and also as a container to put husks for compost production | 4: Lachlan Monsbourgh checking on soil moisture| 5: A trained pig-tailed macaque monkey scampers up the trunk of a coconut palm tree | 6: Ani Setiyoningrum staring at the fresh and healthy clear water inside a coconut| 7: Bakhtiar Bahrim sipping the coconut water direct from the fruit | 8: Lachlan Monsbourgh enjoying meat inside the coconut | 9: Barry Callebaut team having discussion about stand of local cocoa beans and its supply chain with chairman and members of Kecamatan Sungai Gering-ging Cocoa Forum | 10: SCPP and Barry Callebaut teams having joint picture after a brief meeting with the chairman and members of Kecamatan Sungai Geringging Cocoa Forum

1

2 3

4

87

65

9

10

text & photographs by public relations & communication team 4

25th March - Woke early to the beau-tiful sound of Azaan (call for Muslim prayer), we enjoyed typical Indonesian breakfast dish ‘the famous fried rice’ to fill us in. Fried chicken, fried egg, crackers and Indonesian raw veg-etable pickles were served alongside.

Immediately after, we headed towards Nagari Sungayang to meet Ridwan in his cocoa farm which maintained organically with no usage of any chemical input. Barry Callebaut team was impressed with his con-sistency and moreover due to the fact that he could produce cocoa beans up to 1.6 tons per year from about 800 cacao trees by doing so.

Our 30-minute journey to the next target of Nagari Simawang took us along hilly tree-lined roads and beautiful misty terraced paddy fields streets. In this area, we visited Suheri Adam’s cocoa farm. Growing cocoa on a dry land, Suheri Adam circumvents this by supplying more water to his plants. With this he is optimistic that his cocoa production will be better. In his 1.5ha cocoa farm, we had a brief hospitality meeting with members of “Maju Bersama” Farmer Group as well as with the Head of Agriculture, Estate Crops and Forestry of Tanah Datar District, Ir. Edi Arman. “On behalf of Tanah Datar County Govern-ment, I would like to express our gratitude to Swisscontact with its SCPP implemented in the area that creates many folds benefits to the local farmers. Also we welcome very much other aid-program from others either NGOs or private company such as Barry Callebaut if they want to support the local cocoa farmers”, he shared.

Afterwards we stopped over at the cocoa farm of Marjohan [a-71-year-old cocoa farmer] who is still very motivated in growing cocoa. From there we took the road to Nagari Lima Kaum to see Masri’s 0.5 ha cocoa farm that filled in with about 300 cacao trees. From one of his trees, Barry Calle-baut team harvested some ripe pods con-

Day Two in Tanah Datar

tained with pretty good 45 - 50 beans as opened. Not to be outdone, Cipta [the Head of Sales Unit of Tanah Datar County Govern-ment] showed us also his limited cocoa farm.

To finish our agenda in Tanah Datar, we did meet Elfida one of SCPP female benefi-ciaries in the area. “I just came back from helping other fellow cocoa farmer to side-grafting his ageing cacao trees in which for such service I will be given IDR 50.000 per day. I thank Swisscontact-SCPP very much for the knowledge and skill I have now that allow me to assist other farmers and also earn additional income for my family”, she shared with us happily.

Our field activities ended early enough in Tanah Datar to allow us having a leisurely lunch at the famous Mak Syukur Restaurant while passing Padang Panjang on our way back to Padang [capital city of West Sumatra]. Once we’re in we ordered the renowned cuisine of ‘satay Padang’ with ketupat – a type of dumpling made from rice packed inside woven palm leaf pouch. The satay itself is made from beef meat and tongue, cooked in spices, grilled, and tipped in the spicy thick gravy when eaten. The meat was succulent and the gravy was not so hot, just a bit pep-pery which practically made us could not stop our bites before we cleaned our plates. Time to move on and we headed for Padang to visit a local cocoa trader with its quite large warehouse nestled in the industrial zone of Padang. One hour went by after some positive sharing about sales mechanism took place and perhaps collaboration between SCPP’s farmers, Cocoa forum, the trader and certainly Barry Callebaut.

text & photographs by public relations & communication team5

Finally it was the time for Barry Callebaut team to end their field journey in West Sumatra as we headed towards Padang - Minangkabau Airport. On the way, we had a chance to ask Lachlan from BC about the whole trip in West Sumatra. “The journey was horrible” he replied and chuckled with a smile. But then he said, “West Sumatra cocoa potential is there. To boost the production as priority, a clonal garden needed to be established to meet the local farmers’ necessity of proper and better clones”. “Setting big picture which involving many aspects including manufacturers, NGOs, smallholder cocoa farmers, local government, and environ-ment for a sustainable cocoa will be on the task list of Barry Callebout after this trip” he con-cluded right before we reached the airport so that he and the other two Barry Callebauter could catch their evening flights back to their base respectively. While SCPP team needed to stay one more night in Padang to fly with the following day’s flight.

We appreciate so much Barry Callebaut team for their time visiting our SCPP beneficiar-ies in West Sumatra and sharing their encouraging thoughts in order to boost the local farmers’ cocoa productivity. We also thank everyone who made the trip couldn’t be more smooth, in particular to the field staffs in Padang Pariaman and Tanah Datar Pak Yul Akhri and Rizki. Last but not least, many thanks also to Ibu Rahmayanti for the accommodation and transportation arrangements.

Cheers All!

1: Ridwan, SCPP farmer from Nagari Sungayang - Tanah Datar, who is growing cocoa organically| 2: Suheri Adam, SCPP farmer from Nagari Simawang - Tanah Datar | 3: A cocoa farmer in Nagari Simawang are tricking the limited water supply in the dry season by filling the perforated plastic bottles with water and hang them on the jorquette to keep the plants watered.| 4: SCPP and Barry Callebaut Teams had a brief meeting with members of Maju Bersama Group from Nagari Simawang

1 2

3

4

text & photographs by public relations & communication team 6

1: Teams of SCPP and Barry Callebut posing with local farmers | 2: Marjohan, a 71-year-old SCPP farmer from Nagari Simawang, Tanah Datar, who is still very motivated in growing cocoa| 3: Masri, SCPP farmer from Nagari Limo Kaum, Tanah Datar| 4: Pak Cipta opening a ripe cocoa pod | 5: Ibu Ani counting beans given in the cocoa pod from Pak Masri's garden | 6: Ibu Ani and Pak Lachlan showing cocoa pods from Masri's cacao trees | 7: Bakhtiar Bahrim showcasing big cocoa pods | 8: Netty El, SCPP female farmer who earns additional income by sidegrafting unproductive cacao trees from her fellow cocoa farmers | 9: Typical minang cuisine satay padang | 10: cocoa trader, Ibu Meri and Ibu Ani checking on the cocoa beans quiality traded | 11: Workers packing dried cocoa beans into sacks in a warehouse owned by a cocoa trader in Padang

1

3

11

5

10

2

467

8 9

BARRY CALLEBAUT VISIT WEST SUMATRA24 - 25 March 2014

Text & Graphic by Public Relations Team