** This is a part of paper written by Researcher and Director of Indonesia Soil Research Institute Bogor. This paper was presented @ Agro Expo & Seminar in Korea, November 2012.
Special thanks to Mr. Irawan who selected Gasol Pertanian Organik as a part of this story and allow us to publish it in our website and facebook.
COUNTRY
REPORT INDONESIA
SUCCESS STORY OF ORGANIC FARMING IN INDONESIA
Irawan1), H. Wibowo1),
Husnain1) and Sri Rochayati2)
1)Researcher and 2) Director of
Indonesian Soil Research Institute, Bogor
Email: irawan1109@yahoo.com
Introduction
As a big country which has 237
million of people (Population Census in 2010), Indonesia
It was not doubt that adopting
the Green Revolution technology has helped Indonesia Indonesia Indonesia
Despite increasing rice
productivity sharply, the intensified technology has also raised negative
impact on human health and environment. By development of education and
economic sectors, people’s awareness on the environment and food safety are
rising and concept of ‘back to nature” becomes popular and as life style. Based
on AOI (2009) there are about 173 agricultural organic operators, among others
are vegetables (65 operators), rice (31 operators), fruit (26 operators), and
secondary crops such as maize, soybean (13 operators).
However, applying pure
organic farming on rice in a large area of rice field in Indonesia
This paper
presents some success stories of organic farming in Indonesia West Java . The two
operators of vegetable organic farming are Agatho Bina Sarana Bhakti Foundation
and RR Organic Farm, both are located in West Java .
The other information will be including in the final report of ANSOFT activity
in Indonesia
Gasol Organic Farming
Mrs. Ika
Suryanawati was graduated from Bogor Agricultural University (IPB). She started the
business as an organic rice farmer in 2004. The bussines was inspired from the
book titled "One Straw
Revolution” written by
Masanobu Fukuoka.. In the book it is mentioned that “nature is enormous,
we can not beat nature, that is we must be the servant of nature, then nature
will thank you with abundant results”.
In carrying out organic
farming, Mrs. Ika has
the vision and mission of "providing healthy meals based on local raw
materials with environmentally friendly processes". With the principle of
combining local knowledge with the technology she wanted to preserve the local rice
varieties of Cianjur.
As a first step, in 2004 she bought rice field land and started do rice farming
in the area of 7,500 square meters. It is located in Gasol Village , Cugenang Sub-district ,
Cianjur District, West
Java Province
She
explained that at the beginning of the implementation of
organic farming rice
productivity was dramatically declining, even up to 50% of the normal yield.
With these conditions and how different her
agricultural
practices with the others, the surrounding community looked upon her as a strange farmer
or an ancient agricultural practitioner. But as time
goes on and rice yield increases, the surrounding
communities start to have a positive opinion on organic agriculture.
At present Gasol
Organic Farming has expanded the business. The total area of rice organic farming
is 12 hectares. Mrs. Ika now is collaborating with 3 partners who own 20
hectares of land. The main commodity of Gasol Organic Farming
is rice, while the other commodities are corn, red beans, green beans, and
sorghum. Especially for
red beans and green beans, Gasol Organic
Farming has
cooperating partner in Boyolali District, Central
Java .
The site of
rice filed cultivated by Mrs. Ika is matched with the organic farming operation
procedure. Irrigation water is drawn from springs that
widely available in the area.
Irrigation water is
clean or no contamination with
conventional farms in the vicinity. With the implementation of zero waste approach in agricultural farms,
all of the potential materials around the farm are recycled as compost or fertilizers. Bulky organic fertilizer are made of local resources,
such as cattle (horse, goat, buffalo) manure, crops
residue, shell of rice bran, and others. Meanwhile, pesticides are made
of leaves like Mindi (Melia azedarach), Suren (Toona sureni), and
Fava
beans (Vicia faba). Gasol Organic Farming also develops
local microorganism (MOL). Materials used are among others snail, banana weevils, bamboo sprouts, coconut
water, rice washed water, and brown sugar. MOL is used to make
compost or acts as decomposer.
Gasol Organic Farming sells
agricultural products as processed
products, such as rice
flour as Food Companion Mother's
Milk,
with the brand name of “Tepung Gasol”. Mrs. Ika uses the name of Gasol village as a brand of
her product. Tepung Gasol is pure
powder without preservatives,
flavorings and colorings.
At present
“Tepung Gasol”
has been marketed, nationally in 11
various flour, namely:
Fragrant Red Rice, Red Rice, Brown Rice (White Rice), Green Beans, Sweet Wheat, Soybean Meal, Corn Flour, Wheat Banana, Red
Beans, Arrowroot, and Five Grains. Tepung Gasol flour products are sold in
packs of 200 grams. The selling price of Tepung Gasol is about Rp
15,000
(US$ 1.6)
per pack. The average of
sale volume is about 25,000-30,000 packs/ month.
With the ever increasing demand of Tepung Gasol, Mrs. Ika will continue expanding organic farming
system, either on rice or secondary crops. Supporting by her husband, Mr. J.Fleming
Wong, she wants to change the paradigm of
the public opinion that conversion of conventional
to organic farming is very difficult. She is very optimistic to
develop organic agriculture in order to maintain
the balance of nature, environmentaly sustainable, and
health care.
