Mekarwangi is a village in West Jawa, Indonesia with an average elevation of 1,400 meters above sea level. The majority of the population earns a living from farming coffee, tea, and vegetables. Specifically for coffee, much of the planting area is located on land owned by the State and is managed using an agroforestry concept.
Here is a story from Asep, our partner farmer from Mekarwangi:
"Born, grew up, developed, and lived, nurturing what God has given in the village of Mekarwangi.
I started to survive in early 1998 by farming vegetables, receiving vegetable consignments from fellow farmers, which I then sold using a rented pickup truck to the central market at that time. Surviving? Yes, it was common knowledge that being a vegetable farmer back then, with the uncertain selling prices of commodities, certainly provided just enough profit, if not losses.
In the early 2000s, the village leader, Mr. Haji Sugiri, began planting coffee. Initially, it didn't cross my mind to follow in his footsteps, as the stigma around plantation crops for vegetable farmers was that planting coffee meant "long harvest times," "difficult to sell," and "confusing to care for."
However, I remembered my late father’s advice from 1996, who once said, "Start planting coffee and tobacco, so that the results can be stored for a long time and won’t spoil." Thus, at the end of that year, I began planting coffee on 3 hectares of land owned by Perhutani. With effort and faith in my parents, I entrusted all the challenges of planting coffee to God at that time.
So, what coffee was I planting and taking care of? None! Due to limited capital and knowledge, coffee was only a companion crop alongside the vegetables I continued to grow.
Eight years later, in 2008, with the election of a new governor, many policies emerged that favored coffee farmers, particularly market certainty and assistance with facilities. It felt like a windfall; I began to tend to my treasure of 3 hectares of coffee land, alongside the permission to clear state-owned forest for agroforestry. The coffee movement in Mekarwangi then began.
With the West Java Provincial Plantation Office providing direct support from upstream to downstream, a Coffee Cooperative and UPH was initiated in 2010 to address post-harvest issues and funding, learning the processes and production of coffee in 2012, and finally remaining active up until now in 2021.
Always open to criticism and suggestions, eager to learn for the sake of quality and the goodness of coffee itself.
I, Asep Sukmana, am a coffee farmer, coffee processor, and coffee producer from Mekarwangi."
