first published : 3 July 2018

During the education and training event on the development of markets for agricultural commodities on 27-28 April 2018 in Surakarta, 48 participating farmers from 5 sub-districts in 3 districts established a forum for improving and strengthening cooperation among farmers from different regions. They are horticulture farmers in the slopes of Mount Merapi.

For these farmers, marketing of agricultural products is still one of their major issues. So far, prices have always been set by consumers or middle persons. Farmers do not have strong bargaining position since most of them still manage the sale of their products on their own or individually. Quality monitoring, therefore, has also been in most cases overlooked. Such marketing practices have long been adopted that the markets start to lose interest in their products.

With the establishment of the forum, farmers hope to improve the quality control of agricultural products from Merapi areas as well as to strengthen farmers’ bargaining position through collective sales scheme. On the same occasion, the members of Paguyuban Petani Merapi (Merapi Farmers Forum) formulated a number of strategies for improving access to markets for agricultural products from Merapi areas, including mapping on potential agricultural products of Merapi areas and information exchange on the prices of agricultural products at the farmers’ level. The forum covers not only horticulture products but also other commodities that farmers grow in the slopes of Merapi, including coffee, flower, tobacco, and so on.

The Chair of the Forum, Sumardi, expressed his hope that the forum would help farmers to break their dependency on buying and using chemical fertilisers and on debt to buy agricultural inputs.  He believed that farmers are capable of producing their own agricultural inputs.

The Merapi Farmers Forum will consist of farmers in the Mount Merapi landscape, especially from the districts of Boyolali, Klaten, and Magelang.  Therefore, the chair of the forum will be supported by three deputies who will each responsible for their respective district and one coordinator for each village.