Since leaving Makasssar we have been part of a travelling “cocoa caravan” that has ranged in size from 1 to 4 vehicles, driving from hotel to cocoa farm to trial site to farmer’s field day, stopping at the municipal offices to shake hands with the wakil bupati (deputy mayor – the actual mayor is something like the Phantom apparently; few have actually seen him), then heading on to the next town. The group has included university academics from Melbourne, Sydney and Makassar, people involved with various cocoa research projects in Indonesia, and the head of research at Mars (the chocolate company, not the planet; a company, by the way, that is still fully owned by the Mars family!). Everywhere we receive wonderful hospitality in the form of food (perhaps the cause of my “Sulawesi stomach”).
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The team assembles on day 1 in Makassar
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The caravan on tour. We kind of parked out the village.
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A typical South Sulawesi house. They aren't all as nice as this, obviously.
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Selfie with the team, with the head of Agriculture in Polewali on the right.
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The itinerary is usually breakfast at 7, then out by 8.30 to the first
site, before it gets too hot and humid. Then keep going once it is too
hot and humid, trying to drink more than we sweat! Then back to the
hotel by 6 for a cold shower (hot water doesn’t seem to be widely
available, but it’s only Sulawesi cold) before going out to dinner
somewhere then collapsing into bed. I have never felt more a part of the
water cycle!
As you can imagine, there hasn’t been too much time for sightseeing, but that will come once the caravan disbands, people head home, and we are left to our own devices. In Polewali (the fabled city we stared at for months as a dot on a map) I managed to sneak away from the cocoa discussions for a walk along the seafront esplanade. Oddly, it is totally undeveloped, lined with simple houses on one side, all the hotels being located a block away on the fairly grimy main road. Sue’s academic supervisor, who has been coming here for years, admitted to me that he’d never seen the waterfront, which was only about 300 metres from our hotel. This is one focused group of people!
What I have seen in the last 6 days are a hell of a lot of cocoa trees! I have walked around “clone trials” and attempted to tell one variety from another by the shape of the pods. I have peered at leaves to see the traces of the dreaded vascular streak dieback (VSD). I have attended farmer training sessions on the benefits of pemangkasan (pruning), pemupukan (fertilising), kompos (I think you can guess that one), pembersihkan gulma (weeding), naungan (shade) and standing next to the tree with an axe to increase production. (Actually, that is a old Kevin Heinze technique they don’t yet know about. I’ll mention it next time.)
It’s no holiday, and that’s not what we signed up for anyway. But in the bustle of activity, I am managing to chat to farmers, swap cultural observations with my car companion Ayu, from Makassar, eat coconuts and rambutan freshly cut from the tree, and soak up the classic Indonesian vista of fluorescent green rice paddies fringed with coconut palms, with hazy mountain ranges in the far distance. As we Aussies would say would say by way of great praise, “Not bad”.
ruko: house (rumah) with a shop (toko) at the front
As you can imagine, there hasn’t been too much time for sightseeing, but that will come once the caravan disbands, people head home, and we are left to our own devices. In Polewali (the fabled city we stared at for months as a dot on a map) I managed to sneak away from the cocoa discussions for a walk along the seafront esplanade. Oddly, it is totally undeveloped, lined with simple houses on one side, all the hotels being located a block away on the fairly grimy main road. Sue’s academic supervisor, who has been coming here for years, admitted to me that he’d never seen the waterfront, which was only about 300 metres from our hotel. This is one focused group of people!
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Welcome to Polewali (for those of you arriving by boat).
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Pedal-powered fun ride, Saturday evening on the Polewali waterfront
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What I have seen in the last 6 days are a hell of a lot of cocoa trees! I have walked around “clone trials” and attempted to tell one variety from another by the shape of the pods. I have peered at leaves to see the traces of the dreaded vascular streak dieback (VSD). I have attended farmer training sessions on the benefits of pemangkasan (pruning), pemupukan (fertilising), kompos (I think you can guess that one), pembersihkan gulma (weeding), naungan (shade) and standing next to the tree with an axe to increase production. (Actually, that is a old Kevin Heinze technique they don’t yet know about. I’ll mention it next time.)
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A pruning lesson from the master, Arif
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Ode, Sue, Steve and Arif with the cocoa tree we just planted, cocoa farmers field day
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Where it all begins: pods on the tree
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It’s no holiday, and that’s not what we signed up for anyway. But in the bustle of activity, I am managing to chat to farmers, swap cultural observations with my car companion Ayu, from Makassar, eat coconuts and rambutan freshly cut from the tree, and soak up the classic Indonesian vista of fluorescent green rice paddies fringed with coconut palms, with hazy mountain ranges in the far distance. As we Aussies would say would say by way of great praise, “Not bad”.
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Classic Sulawesi landscape: rice, coconuts, mountains
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Words of the day
pupuk: fertiliserruko: house (rumah) with a shop (toko) at the front
Hi Steve,
ReplyDeleteGlad you have both landed in the thick of adventure and are enjoying every bit of it!
Enjoyed reading the post as always.
Mandy :-)
Brilliant material Steve. Glad there was no mention of mosquito bites....but also no mention that the typical cocao tree produces around 1,000 beans a year, only enough to make just 1 kg of chocolate...who would have guessed? Love to Suze -Chas.
ReplyDeleteHi Chas, great to get your feedback and glad you enjoyed the post. Yes, there are plenty of mosquitoes, particularly after the rain when the sun is out again and in the early evening. Despite assurances from everyone we have met that "there is no malaria in Sulawesi", we have decided to keep taking our Doxy tablets for the rest of this first trip (til mid March) and then reassess. Many travel websites do still recommend protecting against malaria in rural Sulawesi. Then there is dengue fever of course. Hence the long-sleeved shirts and tropical strength repellent. As for the cocoa yield, I was chatting to a farmer in Pinrang today, and he claimed to be getting around 2 kg of dried beans a year, with a current price of around $3 per kilo. You still need lots of trees to make a go of it though. Most farmers seem to hedge their bets with a mixture of crops, including rice and fruit trees in addition to cocoa. There are problems with pests and diseases (that's why we are here) but the Mars research station in Terengge is doing great work researching and training farmers in the best varieties and treatment techniques. They are doing great work there, including training "cocoa doctors", which will benefit many farmers in Sulawesi, with no financial strings attached. That's good to see.
DeleteHey Steve,
ReplyDeletefascinating to read and great pictures too. It seems a world away but there you are! I take it you're not seeing too many tourists, which would be an experience in itself. Escaping the guidebook trail is probably easier to do than it seems but unless you've got (another) reason to be there seems odd. Sort of like eating out alone or something... I can't wait for the Sugar Man story, having just watched that movie on the plane a few weeks ago - really great movie. Surely not the same Sugar Man of course.
John
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