Using Community Wisdom
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Adapting Traditional Agriculture in Indonesia
With the assistance of USC’s primary partner in Indonesia, SATUNAMA, poor farmers in the hilly region of Kulon Progo near Yogyakarta are using Seeds of Survival concepts to help them get a foothold in the vanilla market.
Vanilla is a potentially lucrative crop, commanding a good price in the market. Unfortunately, farmers stand to see less and less of this potential income as companies corner the seedling market. These companies have the plant variety rights for hybrid and transgenic seedlings, and the prices they set to purchase the seedlings (about $6 each) makes it difficult for small-scale farmers to get into vanilla production.
Farmers interested in getting into the vanilla market may only be able to grow the plants if they can secure credit to purchase the seedlings. That means farmers have had to turn to banks, seed companies, and other credit agencies, putting their own livelihoods at risk. Farmers lose control of the means of production as they become reliant on these outside groups, which are more concerned with their own profits than with the struggle of farmers.
The farmers in the village of Samigaluh, in Kulon Progo, have been able to get around the seedling companies by establishing their own seedling regeneration plot using a local variety of vanilla. This local variety is highly prized, and was favoured in a recent competition. (The vanilla competition, held each year in Kulon Progo, is based on a number of factors including yield, taste, and smell. Organized to promote goods from the region, the competition included local varieties as well as the hybrid and transgenic varieties of vanilla.)
SATUNAMA provided funding to the 29-member farmer group to buy 2,500 indigenous variety seedlings. More than 700 of the seedlings were planted in the group-managed plot while the remaining plants were distributed among group members. The local variety seedlings cost only about $0.18, and SATUNAMA subsidised 2/3 of that cost.
The Samigaluh farmer group’s vanilla seedling project is just one demonstration of how the Seeds of Survival approach has been incorporated into the work of SATUNAMA in Indonesia, enabling farmers to maintain control of their means of production.
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USC Canada
was founded by
Dr Lotta Hitschmanova in 1945. Our award-winning Seeds of Survival program promotes vibrant family farms, strong rural communities, and healthy ecosystems around the world.
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