Organic pioneers in Ivory Coast

Deutsche Welle, 26 December 2012

Some four years ago, German importer Biotriopic introduced organic farming to Ivory Coast. Investment in Africa has not always been easy, but so far it's been a success story.

There's a scent of lemon in the cold storage complex outside of the German city of Duisburg. Boxes and shelves with bananas, mangos, coconuts, lemons, oranges and pineapples fill the halls from floor to ceiling. At the open gate, a forklift is piling goods onto a waiting truck.

Biotropic is one of Germany's largest importers of organic fruits and vegetables. It all started back in 1997, with organic bananas from the Dominican Republic. Today it's anything from kiwis, nuts, dates to oranges - shipped from all corners of the earth.

Pineapples from Ivory Coast

It all started with pineapples grown
in the Dominican Republic

Four years ago, Biotropic began campaigning for organic pineapple to be grown in Ivory Coast. The German company worked with the local cooperative Ivoire Organics. "We only had a few earlier attempts in a few other countries such as Cameron, where it didn't work out," explained Kuemkwong Siemefo, head of Africa operations at Biotronic.

"Then we went to Ivory Coast where the infrastructure was excellent. We were lucky that the farmers we worked with have a long tradition of growing pineapple," Siemefo added.

Since the 1970s, the West African country has been one of the largest pineapple producers for the European market. But around the turn of the century, production shrunk by more than 20 percent. The civil war scared off investors and buyers, and especially smaller producers had trouble getting their goods onto the international market. For many farmers, this meant unemployment.

Creating jobs

Thanks to the cooperation with Biotropic, plenty of jobs have been created, said Paul Stephane Goa Pegnene, CEO of Ivoire Organics. "We've recruited people from the villages for the work. The smaller producers used to not have the resources to continue growing pineapple. But with the investments of Biotropic, we were able to support them."

The German company got help from Sequa, a development cooperation organization in Bonn, Germany. In 2008 and 2010, Sequa helped with know-how, and above all with money.

Investments in Africa bear a high risk, said Siemefo. "Sequa was the right partner to minimize those risks. Without that financial backing we would not have made that step," he added.

Organic cocoa production is next on the list of new projects for Biotropic

Goals left to reach

For Sequa, it was not just about pineapples, but also about knowledge transfer. A new institute founded at the Abodo Adjame University was supposed to spread technical organic farming expertise across the country. But the cooperation with the university failed for political reasons, said Susanne Sattlegger of Sequa. Nonetheless, she still concludes, positively, that cooperation with the local farmers has worked out well.

"The reason why not all of the development policy goals were archived here, was because of such extreme factors like environment, climate, and also the problematic cooperation with the university for political reasons," Sattlegger explained.

"But those are all things that neither we nor Biotropic would have been able to influence one way or another," she said.

Despite problems, Biotropic has extended it's investments in Ivory Coast. It started with 10 employees and an area of just two hectares some four years ago - today there are around 50 farmers working 70 hectares for Biotropic. An additional 20 small farmers sell their produce to Ivoire Organics.

Biotropic supplies the cooperative with seeds and machinery, and finances the organic certification process. Aside from pineapple, the farmers now also grow cashew nuts, mangos and coconuts for Biotropic. Soon, bananas and cocoa will be added to this list.

Related Articles:

Eco community enjoys organic life outside Moscow

Organic farms have better soil

Organic v. Monsanto

Organic farmers sue Monsanto

Food needs 'fundamental rethink'

Nestlé cultivates 140,000 disease-resistant cocoa trees

Manila Bulletin, February 13, 2010, 2:11pm

ABIDJAN (Reuters) – Nestlé has cultivated 140,000 disease-resistant cocoa trees to distribute to farmers in Ivory Coast and should boost that number to 1 million per year by 2012, a company executive said.

Nestlé last year launched a plan to hand out the high-yield saplings to farmers with a view to possibly doubling their productivity and improving the often poor quality of Ivory Coast's cocoa.

''This year, we are aiming to produce 500,000, and from next year onwards, 1 million every year,'' Klaus Zimmermann, Nestlé's global head of research and development, said.

He spoke to Reuters during a visit of World Bank President Robert Zoellick to a Nestlé installation in Ivory Coast.

Zoellick used the occasion to highlight badly needed reforms to the sector, which he said had to be more transparent and tax farmers less.

Ivory Coast, the world's top cocoa grower, which supplies 40 percent of world demand, has suffered in recent years from lower yields because of aging trees and black pod disease.

Cocoa sector reforms have been held back by a political crisis that has persisted ever since a 2002-3 war split the country in two, leaving the north in the hands of rebels.

Echoing similar efforts in Indonesia and Ecuador, Nestlé, the world's biggest food group, is carrying out research on cuttings from Ivorian plantations to help propagate the stronger varieties.

Zimmermann said Nestlé's high-yield plants would be a hit with farmers.

''When the farmer realises he can get three-fold his income on the same land, he will be convinced,'' he said.

Benefits of the plants include higher quality cocoa, in a country better know for its bulk than its top grades, resistance to disease and drought, and 50 percent to 200 percent more productivity.

Zimmermann cautioned, however, against thinking this would quickly solve Ivory Coast's aggregate supply problems.

''In Ivory coast there are 3 billion trees. If we plant over the next 10 years 12 million, the impact on the quantity of the product will not be that big,'' he said.

Ivorian cocoa plantations yield, on average, between 400 and 500 kilograms of cocoa per hectare, compared with averages closer to 2 tonnes per hectare in countries like Indonesia.

Exporters on Monday estimated about 751,000 tonnes of beans had reached Ivory Coast's two ports by Jan. 24, up from 681,049 tonnes in the same period last year.

Fears that a vicious combination of aging trees, disease and dry weather will bode poorly for cocoa crop yields this season have kept cocoa futures trading at 30-year highs in London and New York in the past few weeks.

W Sulawesi produces 150,000 tons of cocoa per year

Antara News, Monday, January 25, 2010 03:21 WIB

Mamuju, W Sulawesi (ANTARA News) - Cacao estates in West Sulawesi province are now producing more than 150 thousand tons of cocoa per year said West Sulawesi Governor Anwar Adnan Saleh here Sunday.

"With a total of 180,835 ha in five regencies in West Sulawesi, the cacao growers will produce more than 150,000 tons of cocoa per year," he said.

He said the biggest cocoa producer among the five regencies is Mamuju regency covering 65,448 ha producing 53,457.9 tons per year.

The second biggest producer is Polewali Mandar regency with 45,724 ha producing 37,347.4 tons per year.

In the meantime, North Mamuju produces 33,758.9 tons per year from 38,000 ha of cacao estates in northern part of West Sulawesi.

Anwar said that Mamasa regency managed to increase its cocoa production to 16,800.9 tons per year from 20,569 ha.

"The smallest cocoa producer is Majene regency with 9,061.6 tons from 11,094 ha," he said.

Cocoa Revitalization Successful

Tempo Interactive, Wednesday, 13 January, 2010 | 15:46 WIB

TEMPO Interactive, Makassar:The South Sulawesi Provincial Government disbursed Rp268,4 billion to revitalize cocao in 2009.

The central government prepared Rp1 trillion for the National Movement on Cacao Plantation Revitalization for nine provinces.

South Sulawesi received Rp305 billion.

Some Rp152 billion of the central government funds were distributed to the province and to the regencies Rp153 billion.

The province have disbursed 97,05 percent of the funds, or around Rp147.5 billion, and 85 percent of the funds for the regions, or around Rp130.05 billion.

Yesterday, the Head of the South Sulawesi Plantation Office Burhanuddin Mustafa said that the 2009 national budget was allocated to revitalize 48,800 hectares of land out of a total of 256,200 hectares of cocoa land.

The funds were used in stages, which were 4,300 hectares land plant rejuvenation, 20,900 hectares land rehabilitation and 23,700 hectare land intensification.

According to him, activities in northern South Sulawesi produced 23.7 thousand tons of cocoa only from plant intensification.

The production obtained from the revitalized land and from non-revitalized land was about 140 thousand tons, therefore total production in 2009 ranged around 150,000 and160,000 tons.

“South Sulawesi exported 120,000 tons in 2009 at a value of US$313 million or around Rp3 trillion," he said.

The movement consists of 4,200 hectares land rejuvenation, 27,500 hectares land rehabilitation, and 5,550 hectares land intensification.

The revitalization will end in 2011, with a total land target of about 44,100 hectares.

During 2009-2013, the total land that will profit from the revitalization budget will reach 755,000 hectares with production predicted to reach 325,000 tons in the fifth year.

The Plantation Office predicts that the value in 2009 will amount to 4 trillion, in 2010 Rp 4.7 trillion, in 2011 Rp 5.9 trillion, in 2012 Rp 8.7 trillion and in 2013 Rp 11.4 trillion.

SULFAEDAR PAY

Indonesia denies Japan's accusation on 2,4-D content on cocoa

www.chinaview.cn 2009-12-29 20:03:55

JAKARTA, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- The Indonesian Agriculture Ministry rejected Japan's accusation that cocoa from Indonesia contained dangerous chemical compound at more than dangerous level, a senior official of the ministry said here Tuesday.

In March, Japan lodged a complaint on Indonesia over the country's cocoa exported to Japan from Singapore, saying that it had 2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic Acid (2,4-D) at the level of more than 0.01 ppm (parts per million), which is dangerous for health, according to the ministry.

Director General for Plantation of the ministry Achmad Manggabarani said that Indonesia followed up the dissatisfaction and established some tests on the commodity. The result of the tests showed that the 2,4-D content was very small and it was not at dangerous level.

The director said that his ministry would deliver the result soon to the government of Japan and would conduct a government-to-government approach.

"Although our cocoa exports to Japan is small, but, we must clear this issue, this is about the image of our products. We must manage the good image at the international market," he said.

Indonesia's cocoa export to Japan from January to July this year was about 1,136 ton, according to the data from the ministry.

Indonesia also exports its cocoa to the United States, Brazil, China, Singapore and Malaysia.

The country exported 350,000 tons of cocoa in 2008 and the figure is predicted to be flat this year and next year.

Indonesia is the world's third largest cocoa producer after Ivory Coast and Ghana.

Justice for all

The Jakarta Post | Tue, 12/29/2009 8:22 AM

Grandma Minah, a villager living near Purwokerto, Central Java is embraced by actor Butet Kertaredjasa after receiving a cacao seedling from the anticorruption organization Kompak in Jakarta on Monday. The woman, who made newspaper headlines after a local court sentenced her to 45 days in jail for stealing three cacao pods from a plantation company, was named one of Kompak’s People of the Year. JP/Nurhayati

Plantation industry aims big despite economic crisis

The Jakarta Post, Bogor, West Java | Mon, 03/16/2009 11:36 AM

Betting on higher prices for top commodities and the emergence of new markets, the country’s plantation industry is seeking to buck the trend and expects export values this year to increase by 16 percent.

“We believe we can raise our income from exports to US$21.68 billion from last year’s $18.85 billion. This is based on the fact there are new markets available and we believe main commodities prices will improve,” Herdrajat, the Agriculture Ministry’s plantation protection director, said Saturday.

He cited China, the Middle East and India as some of the new export markets.

“Last year’s achievement, which surpassed the original target of $11.55 billion income set in early 2008, was also a big factor in our confidence to increase this year’s exports” he added.

Indonesia is home to plantations of some of the world’s key commodities, including crude palm oil (CPO), rubber and cocoa.

But since the second half of 2008, as the global economic turmoil kicked in, commodities-rich countries like Indonesia have been hit hard by a drop in demand and prices.

However, Herdrajat expected demand would pick up from the new markets, while commodity prices would also recover, providing an eventual boost for the industry.

Still, Herdrajat said it was vital for the government to immediately disburse the stimulus package, in particular the parts designated for the development of agriculture and plantation infrastructure.

“The industry needs the stimulus to improve irrigation and repair broken roads to enhance effectiveness and efficiency,” he said.|

Data from the ministry shows the government also plans to revitalize up to 290,000 hectares of CPO, cacao and rubber plantations in 27 provinces this year.

“[For the project] the government plans to give banking credit subsidies to support farmers in revitalizing the plantations,” Herdrajat said.

“We hope to encourage farmers to revitalize the plantations using the subsidy. We will also fund them for fertilizers in the first year, but we hope they can be self-sufficient in the following years.”

During revitalization, the plantations will not produce commodities for a few months while they are cleaned out.

“For that reason, the government will also give training programs on developing seasonal commodities for farmers to ensure their income during revitalization.”

Plantation revitalization and intensification, which has often caused a rift with other industries, is one of the main challenges the industry still has to face in the future.

“Often the local regent publishes two authorizations on land development for two different stakeholders. For instance, one is for the mining industry and the other for CPO plantations; this situation often causes conflicts,” he said.

“And most of the time, people regard mining as more important than plantations.”

The CPO industry, which absorbs around 3.7 million laborers, contributed around $10.7 billion to the country’s economy in 2008.

“With these training programs, we hope farmers will have more initiative to take action, not just wait for government officials to do the job for them,” Herdrajat said.

“We will also give them technical training on plantation development, sanitation and fertilizing techniques.” (hdt)

Plantation exports (in US$ billion)

Year Target Realization

2007 11.25 14.64

2008 11.55 18.85

2009 21.68 --

Source: Agriculture Ministry

State Set To Recover Idle Land

The Jakarta Globe, Arti Ekawati, February 25, 2009

The Agriculture Ministry plans to survey the management of lands leased by the state to large-scale plantation companies across the country to identify those that are not being worked on or have been abandoned, Achmad Mangga Barani, the Agriculture Ministry’s director general of plantations, said on Tuesday in Jakarta.

Owners of abandoned plantations, he said, would be warned and their licenses revoked after 18 months if they failed to cultivate the leased lands.

He said the survey would categorize plantations into five categories: excellent, good, adequate, poor and abandoned.

In determining a plantation’s category, the ministry would take various factors into account, such as soil management, financial management, economic performance and the management of social relations in the vicinity of the plantation.

Achmad said that the survey was aimed at encouraging big plantation firms to manage their lands better and to minimize abandonment.

The survey, he said, would start in the middle of the year and would focus on three major types of plantation: cacao, oil palm and rubber.

The owners of abandoned plantations would then be issued with warnings. “We will give them 18 months to improve their management after the warnings,” Achmad said. “If there is no improvement, we will withdraw their plantation licenses and confiscate the land.”

The survey is also being done to determine how much of plantation land has been abandoned.

“We must recalculate and reclassify the land to identify the exact area,” he said.

He said that instead of lying abandoned, the land could be used for other purposes, such as the growing of food crops.

Winarno Tohir, chairman of the Progressive Farmers’ and Fishermen’s Association, or KTNA, welcomed the government’s plan to seize abandoned plantations.

“It’s a good idea,” he said. “The lands could be used for the growing of food crops and for increasing both farmers’ incomes and national food production.”

According to Winarno, there are currently some 56 million hectares of abandoned plantations across the country, with about 32 million hectares consisting of abandoned rubber and oil palm plantations.

“It would be very disturbing if we weren’t able to use this abandoned plantation land for something useful, considering the limited area of land for growing food crops,” he said.

At present, Indonesia only has about 7 million hectares of irrigated paddy fields.

“This area could be expanded by taking over the abandoned plantations. So, we would end up being able to produce more rice,” Winarno said.

Sutarto Alimoeso, the Agriculture Ministry’s director general of food crops, said that the National Land Agency, or BPN, had identified 9.1 million hectares of idle land that could be given over to the growing of food.

“The land could be parcelled out to small farmers over the next three to five years,” he said.

However, he warned that not all the land would be suitable for rice cultivation.

Special Report: Slowdown jolts RI's commodity-heavy economy

The Jakarta Post, Fri, 11/14/2008 11:04 AM

The Indonesian economy has been generating lucrative profits from the soaring prices of agricultural commodities during the last two years. Following increasing dependency on this business, the recent slump in commodity prices has severely impacted on the economy. The Jakarta Post business section features a special report on commodity sector problems. Here are the stories:

For seasonal farmer Alex Sinaga of Tanjungjabung Barat regency, Jambi, the world is tumbling down around his ears after knowing that his October revenue has dropped by a factor of 10 times following the plummeting global prices for palm oil.

Having previously enjoyed a monthly income of Rp 5 million (US$434 million), six times higher than a university-graduate civil servant in his province, Alex now has to end his shopping spree earlier than expected.

In Jambi, fresh oil palm fruit bunches are now sold at Rp 200 per kilogram, having dropped like a stone from Rp 1,500 per kilogram a few months ago.

Alex is just one example of how Indonesians living in rural areas have already taken a severe knock from the global economic crisis earlier than the government has estimated, since the government initially concluded that the full negative impact would not be felt until the first quarter of next year.

As one of the world's top producers of palm oil, rubber, cocoa and coffee, the Indonesian economy, Southeast Asia's biggest, was making good profits from high agricultural commodity prices earlier this year.

In the first nine months of the year, exports of crude palm oil (CPO), for example, reached $12.12 billion, or 14.5 percent of the country's non-oil and gas exports, according to the Central Statistics Agency.

"Commodity prices soared since 2007 up until early 2008. Clearly, Indonesia benefited significantly from commodity trade, as proven by exports and industry expansion," said World Bank chief economist and senior vice president Justin Yifu Lin recently.

The magnitude of agricultural commodity business is even more significant when remembering that it is estimated to have employed 99.9 million workers, both seasonal and permanent, according to Siswono Yudhohusodo, chairman of the Indonesian Farmers Union (HKTI) advisory board.

Producing an estimated 18.5 million tons of palm oil this year from more than six million hectares of plantation, Indonesia is the world's largest producer of the commodity.

However, with slumping demand from the world's largest importers of palm oil -- China, India and Europe -- local palm oil farmers are now likely to seek more loans from the pawnshop to help ends meet.

The slowing demand has sent the Malaysian CPO benchmark price down to 1,505 ringgit ($419.89) per ton on Wednesday from its peak of 4,486 per ton on March 4, as reported by Bloomberg.

Indonesian Association of Oil Palm Producers (Gapki) chairman Akmaluddin Hasibuan said the plummeting prices had been exacerbated recently by moves from several countries to intentionally default on purchase contracts due to slow demand.

Among the importers carrying out this practice are 30 Indian companies.

"The Indian companies are being unethical by defaulting on their import contracts that have consequently affected our exporters as well as our farmers," Akmaluddin told The Jakarta Post recently.

"We have filed complaints with the Indian government and Indian oil palm-related trade associations but we haven't received any response yet," he said.

There are also contract defaulters in the European Union countries and China.

Indonesia and Malaysia together produce around 85 percent of the world's CPO and account for 88 percent of global CPO exports.

Last year, Indonesia and Malaysia produced about 17 million tons and 15.7 million tons of CPO respectively.

Indonesia recorded exports of $5.5 billion in 2007, with more than 75 percent of its palm oil output being exported as CPO, while by contrast Malaysia posted a higher export revenue of $10.4 billion, with 80 percent of its output exported as value-added products.

In a bid to help bolster the CPO price, Indonesia and Malaysia agreed last week to cut palm oil output by 75,000 tons and around 500,000 to 600,000 tons respectively next year, according to the Agriculture Ministry's director general for plantations, Achmad Manggabarani.

Indonesia also plans to replant 50,000 hectares of oil palm trees while Malaysia plans to replant 250,000 hectares next year.

Achmad hoped the prices of palm oil could then reach its commercially viable level of around $700 to $800 per metric ton.

Meanwhile, Indonesian Vegetable Oil Producers Association (Gimni) executive director Sahat Sinaga said the export drop had actually been developing since 2006 when European countries began to use soybean and sunflower oil as alternatives to CPO for feedstock for biofuel.

Furthermore, he said, the financial crisis and economic downturn had led some foreign buyers to stop ordering CPO due to the drying up of liquidity in their banks, which had previously helped to finance CPO purchases.

"Capacity utilization of CPO production is expected to decline to 48 percent by the end of this year, from 52 percent forecast earlier," said Sahat.

Rubber, coffee and cacao are all experiencing similar problems to those experienced by the CPO sector.

Indonesian Rubber Association (Gapkindo) executive director Suharto Honggokusumo said the price of natural rubber reached its peak at $3.3 per kilogram on June 27 before slumping to its lowest point at $1.53 per kilogram on Sept. 16.

The price has since failed to recover.

With rubber production amounting to 2.7 million tons last year, Indonesia is the world's second biggest rubber producer after Thailand.

Last week, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand , which produce between them 70 percent of global natural rubber production, jointly agreed to cut rubber production by 210,000 tons next year by replanting trees.

Robusta coffee also fell to its lowest point at $1.5 per kilogram after peaking at $2.5 per kilogram around three months ago, according to the Indonesian Coffee Exporter Association (AEKI) chairman Hassan Wijaya.

Indonesia is the fourth largest producer of coffee after Vietnam , Colombia and Brazil, producing around 450,000 tons per year of which 250,000 tons are exported.

Cacao also dipped to around $1,930 per ton from a record high of $3,200 per ton around August, according to Indonesian Cacao Association (Askindo) secretary general Zulhefi Sikumbang.

Zulhefi, however, said cacao farmers were relatively safe from price volatility.

"Our farmers are still able to earn profits by selling cacao for around Rp 15,000 to Rp 16,000 per kilogram. They would suffer losses if the price dipped below Rp 11,000 to Rp 12,000 per kilogram," he said.

Indonesia is the world's third largest cacao producer with an estimated production of 500,000 tons. Ivory Coast and Ghana are the first and second largest. JP/Mustaqim Adamrah