Gasol Pertanian Organik - Success Story of Organic Farming in Indonesia

** 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 must increase rice production despite agricultural land conversion. It is estimated that population number in 2020 will increase to around 259 million people and the total rice need for national consumption and buffer stock would be 40.3 million tons or equal to 66 to 67 million tons of husky rice.  Self sufficiency in rice for the country is a must as majority of the people dependent on rice as staple food. 

It was not doubt that adopting the Green Revolution technology has helped Indonesia to achieve rice self-sufficiency in 1984. Since than, Indonesia have to struggle in providing food for the nation, including importing rice in a huge number for several years. Again in 2008, Indonesia has achieved rice self sufficiency by implementing intensified approach of integrated crop management technology, called SLPTT throughout the country.  The SLPTT technology consists of, among others using balance in-organic fertilizers, high yielding variety, and pest management. This technology increases rice productivity from 3-5 tons/ha to 5-7 tons/ha.

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 has generated counter pros. One side believes that pure organic farming application in rice will be bothering rice self sufficiency program, while the other is sure that organic farming will increase rice or crop productivity and farmers’ welfare.   

This paper presents some success stories of organic farming in Indonesia. The information provide in this paper was collected by conducting field observation and interviewing organic farming operators in Java. The activity of field observation and interview was held on September 2012. There were five rice organic farming operators, three vegetable organic farming operators, and one tea organic farming operator who interviewed during the field observation. However, in this paper we present the success story of four and two operators on rice and vegetable, respectively. The four operators of organic rice described in the paper are Sri Makmur Farmer’s Group representing Central Java, Gapoktan Simpatik, Sarinah, and Gasol Organic Farming representing 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. Later, she called the site as Gasol Organic Farming.

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.