A Rubber Farmer: What's New?
Source Person: Sunarsiah, Age 48, A Rubber Farmer
Q: Please tell us a little bit about yourself.
A: Hello, my name is Sunarsiah. I’m 48 years old. I’m from Karang Jaya, a small village in a western region of South Sumatera. I have worked as a rubber farmer for more than 30 years. I started this job since I was very young. At that time, education wasn’t really important for people to reach, especially women. Since I graduated from middle school, I was helping my parents and learn how to trim rubber plants.
Q: How many times in a day you trim the rubber?
A: I started my work at 7 o’clock in the morning. The rubber field is quite far from my home, but it still can be reached by foot. I took me 3-4 hours to trim all the plants on the field.
Q: How did you cut the plants?
A: We did it by slicing the bark until the cambium* show a latex. Tapping is not done vertically from top to bottom, but from the upper left to the lower right to form a latex flow path, with a slope of about 30 degrees.
Q: Does this job have a big profit?
A: It did, a few decades ago. However, for the last few years, the price of the rubber has been decreased dramatically. In the past, most of farmers in this village planted rubber, after rice.
Q: What’s the solution for the rubber farmers to stand that kind of situation?
A: Truthfully, we have no other choice but to survive. Rubber plants took very long to grow, decades. They also cannot be easily cut down and replaced with the other commodities. It also took a lot of money to spend to cut them down. We are reckless. As long as car tires, motorcycle and airplane tires still use rubber to make, we will continue to work. Unless it doesn’t have a price anymore.
Q: What is the government's response to this situation?
A: The demand of the market is increasing but the prices are still falling, we have to urge the government to do many things to overcome this situation. Some of the things the government recommends are ordering the state-owned enterprises to buy rubber from farmers, encourage the construction of rubber processing factories in the country, and the president even asked the Ministry of Public Works and Public Housing (PUPR) to use rubber as a mixture for road asphalt. As for the last, he promised to invite the two largest rubber producing countries, Malaysia and Thailand, to plan joint steps.
Q: Other than the price, what else can be detrimental to rubber farmers?
A: Even though the commodity prices will be corrected in the future, the fact there is uncertainty. Some rubber plants are facing a fungal attack which is quite worrying. This fungal attack will obviously reduce the natural rubber production. This has an impact on both the quality and quantity of the latex produced. In addition, it is also clear that old plants will produce the same.
*the border between the skin rubber and wood / xylem
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