Indonesia: False Hopes of Prosperity Lead to Debt Trap, Tobacco Farmer Suicides

Source from:  Jakarta Globe  11/20/2012

For farmers in West Nusa Tenggara, growing tobacco can lead to four things — become rich and afford to perform the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, become wealthy enough to take a second wife, go to another province to escape mounting debt or become broke and commit suicide.

The government has taken some steps to curb the growing numbers of smokers in Indonesia, including banning smoking in some public places and proposing to limit the nicotine level of cigarettes.

For tobacco growers in the province this means soon there will be fewer buyers. Some are already feeling the pressure of mounting debts, leading several farmers to suicide.

Tobacco farmer Saparuddin, from Jerowaru village in East Lombok district, said his neighbor Amaq Lina had long fled to Malaysia, leaving behind his tobacco plantation and tens of millions of rupiah in debt.

Amaq "just left quietly, running away from the debt collectors and the mounting debt entangling him," Saparuddin told the Jakarta Globe.

Saparuddin said there are already five tobacco growers in his village who have fled due to mounting debt and he is soon to be the sixth. "I want to run to Kalimantan, I need to escape first from my debt to slowly pay it back. Maybe I'll be a driver there," he said.

Saparuddin said he ventured into the tobacco plantation business two years ago, lured by the prospect of striking it rich by growing tobacco and envious of his neighbors who had.

Last year, Saparuddin fetched a profit of Rp 35 million ($3,600) from his 1.8 million hectare farm, but dry season and stricter tobacco control regulations spelled disaster for the grower and he now owes a loan shark Rp 50 million.

In spite of Lombok's status as a tobacco haven, many small farmers lack the infrastructure to benefit from the trade. They lack drying ovens to treat their produce and many sell unharvested tobacco to middlemen at a low price.

Muhammad Rusli, an official in the West Nusa Tenggara provincial administration, recalled one farmer who burned himself to death inside the oven he used to dry tobacco leaves amid mounting debt.

"It was in 2009," Rusli said. "The farmer borrowed hundreds of million of rupiah. He tried and tried but never succeeded."

Fatahillah, a tobacco grower from Central Lombok, said many farmers from his village are also fleeing to Malaysia to escape mounting debt.

"There are many who got divorced because of tobacco," he said.

Lombok's Virginia tobacco is billed as among the world's best but the heyday seems to be over for the farmers, with tobacco production dropping in Indonesia.

For the past three months hundreds of tobacco farmers in Lombok have staged demonstrations, protesting the government's anti-tobacco drive and pleading for tobacco companies operating in the province to buy their produce.

Among the farmers regularly participating in the protests is Saini, a mother of three who has been in the tobacco farming business for 30 years. Saini said she used to enjoy Rp 300 million of profit each year but this year her luck has changed.

She usually could sell all her tobacco within a week of its harvest, but this harvesting season the tobacco has been sitting in her storage facility for three months.

The protesters have been dumping their rotting tobacco leaves in public squares, in a desperate cry for the government to do something.

"We have tried rice but the prices were too low," said Kasmayadi, a protesting farmer. Enditem