Indonesia Tries to Puff Up Clove Cigarette Industry

Source from:  The Wall Street Journal 06/23/2016

The scent of cloves, wrapped up and smoked in cigarettes, has long permeated daily life in this archipelago, from urban cafes to far-flung tropical spice islands like this one.

Now, clove plantations are under attack by voracious insect larvae known as stem borers. And agricultural scientists are on a mission to save them.

The urgency stems from scientists' discovery that more than 1 million clove trees, or about 15% of the total, are dying here in Maluku Province, a major producer. The predicament has driven up prices and hurt production of a major agricultural industry that employs more than a million farmers.

"If these current conditions persist, we predict that in 10 to 20 years the population of mature clove trees will decrease by more than 50%," said J. Audrey Leatemia, who led a team appointed by the local government to investigate the problem and propose solutions.

Cloves and other spices are among the country’s oldest sources of wealth, drawing Dutch colonizers here in the 17th century. Cloves were valued around the world for their medicinal properties and as a food preservative. In China they were used to freshen the breath of people addressing the country's emperors.

Today, cloves are mixed with tobacco and other additives to produce so-called kretek cigarettes that are sold in Indonesia and across Southeast Asia. Experts say the health risks are equal to that of smoking regular tobacco cigarettes. Clove-based oils have other uses: a natural analgesic for tooth aches, an antiseptic to treat aquarium fish, and even in teas as an anti-flatulent. The industry employs 6 million people in Indonesia.

"This country wouldn't be a nation without cloves," said Simon Matakupan, whose family here grows several hectares of the syzygium aromaticum tree, which produces the aromatic flower bud from which the spice is produced.

The scientists' challenge is to halt the infestations from spreading before local cigarette makers turn to countries such as Madagascar and Tanzania to import cloves—an idea that some Indonesians consider a betrayal of their patrimony. For many farmers it would be as if France were to import sparkling wine from other countries and call it Champagne.

"Cloves originate here," said Dahlan Said, chairman of the Indonesian clove farmers association, advocating import restrictions. "Why would we need to import them?"

But overcoming the clove farming industry's problems is a struggle.

Nurliani Bermawie, principal researcher at the Ministry of Agriculture's spice and medicinal crops research institute, said more than 15% of the country's 1.2 million acres of clove plantations aren't yielding any cloves due to pest attacks and old age. And she said nearly two thirds of the country's clove plantations are under-producing due to poor farming techniques.

The issues come as demand for the spice is growing from kretek cigarette makers, whose output of machine-rolled kretek cigarette has grown on average about 7% annually in recent years, buoyed by population and economic growth. The country’s largest cigarette manufacturer, majority owned by Philip Morris, views machine-rolled kretek cigarette as the future of the industry.

Enter the team led by Ms. Leatemia, who heads the plant pest laboratory at Pattimura University in Ambon, the capital of Maluku.

They are urging farmers to plant their trees farther apart to curb diseases and pests, to use more organic fertilizers and pesticides, to weed more frequently and choose healthier saplings. Maluku officials such as Mohamad Syuja Tuanaya send teams to ensure farmers are following the guidelines.

The scientists hope the national government will act on its findings, too. Gamal Nasir, director-general for plantations at the agriculture ministry, said he would send a team to Maluku and Sulawesi to work on the problem. But he added that it would take time since he is concerned with 126 other commodities as well.

Meanwhile, Ms. Leatemia’s team is focusing on developing new pesticides. One promising prospect involves a combination of soursop seeds and the stalk buds from the cloves to deter pests. It might seem strange teaching seasoned farmers how to grow a crop that their ancestors have been cultivating for centuries, Ms. Leatemia said.

"But things are different now," she said. "In the past, the pests weren't like this."

The efforts can't come too soon.

In one Buru Island area, stem borers had damaged more than 83% of the clove plantations—an area of more than 2,200 acres, the university scientists found in their research two years ago.

Bouncing along twisting dirt roads through Maluku province on four-by-four pick-up trucks two years ago, they came across plantation after plantation where clove trees were riddled with disease and in their last throes of life.

They spent months collating their research, filling log books with data and interviewing farmers among the rugged islands, some 1,400 miles from the capital, Jakarta.

"It wasn't only aging trees that were dying," said Herman Rehatta, an agricultural technology researcher. "Many of our younger trees are in bad shape too and have been attacked by pests." Enditem