Dean Novel, 45, is obsessed with promoting the welfare of corn farmers in West Nusa Tenggara (NTB).
By
Khaerul Anwar
·5 minutes read
Dean Novel, 45, is obsessed with promoting the welfare of corn farmers in West Nusa Tenggara (NTB). He has been searching for a solution for farmers who are having a hard time accessing business capital, applying the appropriate technique of cultivation and selling their harvests.
“Farm business today should be managed in a modern way. Therefore, the process of production and technique of cultivation should be reordered so as to ensure productive business and quality harvests,” said Dean Novel on Friday (27/3/2020) in Mataram, Lombok, NTB.
Dean started helping corn farmers in Lombok in 2008. At the time, farmers were still growing corn traditionally. Their knowledge of cultivation technology was relatively limited. “They cleaned the land and then a hole was filled with several seeds, given meager fertilizer, while the plants were filled with weeds for lack of maintenance. They returned to the land when the plants were ready for harvesting,” added Dean.
He began by forming partnership that involved 230 farmer families possessing 240 hectares of land in Pringgabaya district, East Lombok.
For Dean, such a farming method was improper. So he tried to provide guidance for the farmers. He began by forming partnership that involved 230 farmer families possessing 240 hectares of land in Pringgabaya district, East Lombok.
The partnership was bound by an agreement, obligating fostered farmers to become members of Koperasi Dinamika Nusra Agrobis, a cooperative set up by Dean. It was also agreed that there would be no confiscation of assets in the case of farmers’ failure to achieve fixed targets.
Dean recruited a number of employees in charge of instructing farmers. The instructors were trained in practical corn cultivation skill and the method of communication with farmers. “We are directing them from planting, selecting cultivation materials, plant distancing, carrying out maintenance, to harvesting. We make written schedules for plant maintenance, with printouts attached to the doors of fostered farmers’ homes,” he said.Originally Dean claimed to find it hard to teach the new farming technique to farmers already used to conventional farming. In order to induce farmers’ confidence, he built an agricultural learning center on a plot of 0.5 hectare. There, farmers can practice the new farming technique they have learned.
Farmers are shown how to plant seeds, which is by filling a hole with one corn seed. The distance between plants is arranged at 20-20-70 cm. This is unlike their previous practice of filling two to three seeds into one hole.
The system of single seed per hole enables the use of seeds to be measured and the population of plants calculated. With 20 kilograms of seeds per hectare, the plant population becomes 71,000-75,000 stems. Farmers owning 0.7 hectare are asked to make the plant distance closer to become 15-15-60 cm or 15-15-40 cm so that the corn population is equivalent to that of a 1-hactare plot.
Solution
For farmers, the presence of Dean has given a solution because they always have difficulty in securing business capital and production facilities like seeds, herbicide, fertilizer and labor costs. From Dean, farmers obtain business capital in the form of cash loans without collateral. Novice farmers can borrow Rp7 - 8 million per hectare of land and skilled farmers Rp3 - 5 million per hectare. The loans adopt the sharia principle with nil percent interest.
So far the ratio of bad debts has been less than 2 percent. The bad debts are not due to “delinquent” farmers, but rather mostly result from harvests falling short of expectations due to natural and climatic factors.
“I feel grateful that the farmers are honest. There are indeed some farmers who admit having not yet delivered their harvests and promise to settle the payments. I even forget them,” said Dean.
Upstream-downstream
Later, Dean developed a model of sustainable farming from the upstream to services and to the downstream. The upstream comprises corn farmers (producers) tasked with plant cultivation, while services are companions and providers of agricultural equipment. The downstream is the cooperative/company handling the processing of harvests and their marketing.
If the market price of corncobs is Rp1,800 per kilogram, the harvests per hectare are worth Rp21.6 million.
This system is mutually profitable and capable of uplifting the welfare of corn farmers in Lombok. Dean referred to the productivity of land per hectare, reaching 12 tons of corncobs. If the market price of corncobs is Rp1,800 per kilogram, the harvests per hectare are worth Rp21.6 million.
If 5 percent of the total corn population fails to grow, the productivity decreases to about 10 tons of corncobs per hectare worth Rp18 million. After deductions of business loans and production facilities worth Rp8 million per hectare, farmers still earn Rp10 million.
Dean usually buys corn harvests after the market price has begun to rise. With such an approach, it’s not surprising that a lot of farmers are ready to become partners. Within a few years, the partners who at first were only 230 farmers have now totaled 7,000 with a land area of 7,000 hectares.