Have you ever visited or worked in a place that is very isolated from the digital world, with no internet access, electricity, even a cellular signal provider mobile. I am lucky to have had such experiences in 2017 and then when I am working in an NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) named PETRA. An NGO engaged in saving the environment and conservation of forest in the area of the Batang Toru and South Tapanuli.
Work in Non-Governmental Organization gives me incredible experiences and interests in my work in the previous activity in the vicinity of the farm. In that time we are bringing some coffee farmers from the village of Sialaman, Kecamatan Sipirok in South Tapanuli Regency, North Sumatera Province – Indonesia.
Why do we bring the farmers of the village? because, geographically, the village Sialaman is directly adjacent to the Nature Reserve Dolok Sibual Buali. We hope if coffee farmers in the village Sialaman can get better yields from the garden, so get more income and impact the preservation of the Nature Reserve because the surrounding community is already prosperous.
We invite five people, coffee farmers, to the area of Kayu Aro Jambi, more precisely to the Village of Sungai Lintang. A village located at the foothills of Mount Kerinci, the highest mountain on the island of Sumatra. If you look at the map distance between the cities River is Filled with River village of Latitude is only 30km but the path we tread the rocky, uneven, and uphill. So to get to these locations can only be traversed by some of the specific cars.
Sungai Lintang Village is located very isolatedly from the world because there is no mobile signal or internet signal. This can be understood by the vastness of the territory of Indonesia and how the construction of the government focuses on the island of Java alone. My first impression when I arrived in this village, that is very natural, and cold. When I check the altitude range 1200-1300 meters above sea level but because it is surrounded by native forest so the weather is feeling very cold. According to the narrative of the citizens of the village sometimes even tigers also passing by in the village.
I was surprised to see the productivity and creativity of the farmers in the Sungai Lintang Village, they even have a nursery unit coffee so coffee seedlings do not need to be taken from outside the village there are several types of coffee seedlings such as Kartika, Andung Sari, Sigararutang, and Ateng Super. According to Mr. Suryadi, one of the coffee farmers in the village and take care of the nursery for the purpose of making Sentra coffee seedlings to facilitate the farmers will start planting coffee. Because in Sungai Lintang Village are usually the first farmers of cinnamon and the land is then empty, but land can be utilized in unison with the planting of cinnamon as the protector of the coffee plant.
The next day we did activities on how to plant the seeds of coffee correctly. The Tips given are before will be planted cleaning around the area to be planted. Then the ground crumbled and dug a bit in because if it is too low could be marred by animals such as pigs or monkeys. Once planted do the watering routine to coffee seedlings newly planted if when it does happen to rain.
One of the things that are rarely done by the coffee farmers in the Village Sialaman – Sipirok is to do the trimming against the coffee plant. Pruning is very important, because if the coffee plant is not pruned then the limb will grow continuously so that the coffee plant is not able to bear fruit. We were taught how to trim a good coffee that is by leaving the limb as many as seven branches that surround the stem.
Me and coffee farmers from the village of Sialaman Sipirok very amazed and unnerved to see coffee plantations there despite their villages located far from the city and difficult to get access to knowledge but they want to hear the agricultural extension workers who come in there and make a garden of their coffee is better. Whereas in Sialaman-Sipirok longer lifespan cropping but the amount of harvest is very far from the coffee plantation on the Sungai Lintang-Kayu Aro. When it was our lot to learn to make the coffee farm better again.
Call me Isdarmady, because I have a full name that is very long, namely Isdarmady Syahputra Ritonga. I am a head of the family who work as Farmers Vegetables Hydroponic and Consultant Hydroponics, sometimes I also sell coffee from various regions in Indonesia.
I have expertise dispensing coffee with a variety of techniques and tools brewing, because I have the desire to make a coffee shop with hydroponics as centerpieces. Help me realize that dream.
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