Indonesia’s clove heritage at risk

The Indonesian government has asked agricultural scientists to identify ways of boosting productivity on the country’s failing clove plantations, according to a story in the Wall Street Journal relayed by the TMA.

Ministry of Agriculture researcher Nurliani Bermawie has said that more than 15 percent of the country’s 1.2 million acres of clove plantations are not yielding any cloves due to pest attacks and old age.

And nearly two thirds of the plantations are under-producing due to poor farming techniques.

The government has asked the scientists to investigate the problems and propose solutions to save the crop before local kretek cigarette makers turn to countries such as Madagascar and Tanzania to import the spice.

Dahlan Said, chairman of the Indonesian clove farmers’ association, said such imports would comprise a betrayal of the country’s heritage, because cloves originated in Indonesia.

Demand for the spice is growing from kretek cigarette makers, whose output has grown by about seven percent annually in recent years, driven by population and economic growth.