The bitter-sweet experience

of rubber tapper

Returning to his hometown in North Bengkulu in early February 2017 was a challenge for Yohanes Dian Alpasa. Observing local people and exploring their lives are the important things to do to have a map of its potency and challenges.

Learning the area is not just social and cultural but also agricultural part. The economy life of the people of North Bengkulu, especially Padang Jaya village, district of Margasakti is relied on the plantation sector. Palm and rubber became the mainstay in the middle of the economic situation which has become difficult today.

Budi Prasetyo, a rubber farmer who also serves as the church assembly of GKSBS Kurotidur told the ups and downs of being a rubber tapper. In the year of 1996-1998, the majority of farmers in  Margasakti were working on agriculture of paddy fields. The irrigation system was designed by building a dam in Lais river to irrigate 4000 hectares (one district of Padang Jaya). The water flows from Lais water dam splits Lais sub-district from east to west. The agriculture area was located in the south side of the irrigation canal.

The farmers worked by planting rice in the paddy fields. However, this condition was changed since 2005. The villagers flocked to reform the paddy fields into rubber and oil palm plantations. The people no longer waited for the harvest of rice in three months cycle (90 days of harvest) but started with harvest once in two weeks of tapping rubber gum or oil palm harvesting.

It is just this years, economic condition slowly begins to grow. About 6 years the villagers enjoyed the harvest of oil palm and rubber. The purchasing ability increased among the people as they began to be able to buy a motorcycle in cash and began to build his home permanently or semi-permanently.

In the middle of 2011, the global economic crisis affected the price of rubber latex. The prices fell down from the Rp 22.000 to Rp 6.000. According to Budi, the last two years the price never reached the rate of Rp 4.000 per kilogram. The prices fall also occurred in oil palm commodity, the price was Rp 1.700/kg to Rp 500/kg. Two large plantations used to employ most of the manpower of Margasakti village, were forced to reduce their workers by layoff to reduce operational costs. In the middle of 2016 until now, the price of rubber starts to be stable at Rp 8.500 to 9.500/kg. The rubber tappers are getting able to feel the blessing.

Rubber trees are not like other trees in terms of fertilization. A wrong procedure in fertilizing causes roots rotten because of the fungus. Budi said that actually rubber trees rarely need to be nurtured, and fertilization can be done periodically, for example once in three months to increase productivity.

When the rubber trees are tapped, there is a substance that should be sown into the container of rubber latex to freeze the rubber. When the rain comes, the farmers cannot tap rubber trees. When the dry season comes, no rubber tree can be tapped. Then we can imagine that when rain or drought come, the rubber tappers do not earn anything from their plantation.

In the future, the knowledge of organic fertilizer production, post-harvest processing of rubber latex, and sales distribution are important to know by the community of rubber farmers. These are some works to do in the multiplication program. Hopefully farmers always get a blessing in rubber tapping. (YDA).