The vast potential bestowed upon West Papua is a never-ending topic. The enormous bountiful natural resources could lead to an important economic catalysator for Indonesia. One of them is coconut plantation -typical fruit with its fresh and slightly sugary water taste- is actually one with future realm commodities of the island.
An Overview Of Coconut in Tambrauw Regency – West Papua
Known to be the 5fth largest Island of Indonesia, West Papua is a blessed province with many potential commodities which are truly beneficial and valuable for the life of its local, and even worldwide consumers. The Bird’s Head Peninsula, floating in the west part of Indonesia, strategic location has been a bliss for the island to get diverse types of commodity plantation, including one of Indonesia’s favorites, coconut.
Divided into more than 10 regencies, some of those regencies in West Papua cultivate the coconut plantation, including Tambrauw regency, one of the largest regencies. But, Tambrauw offers a massive production of coconut within 5 000 tons estimated production per year, from around 4 048 ha cultivated and handled by more than 1800 coconut farmers in the regency.
Along the time, those local coconut farmers contribute unconsciously to the local economic development by selling the fresh coconut fruit and its derivatives product. However, with righteous and meticulous consideration and guidance, the coconut commodity and the farmer could gain a greater value .
Exploration Of Potential Coconut Derivative Product
Coconut trees have a wide range of benefits within almost all of their parts, from the tree trunk and stick to the fruit itself. Coconut shells are also commonly used, especially in Indonesia, like activated charcoal and charcoal briquettes. The sticks are used to form a broomstick for daily needs.
Coconut fruit can be consumed right away after being picked from the tree. Beyond that, one coconut fruit can be divided into different raw products from its water, flesh, shell, and husk. Each of them has the potential to be a more valuable product.
By processing the coconut flesh only, it produces promising products such as coconut copra, leading to more high-value derivative products. Through different processes, coconut copra from its flesh can be transformed into coconut oil, ingredients for cosmetics products, and even copra meal served for animal feed.
For a quiet period, the coconut farmers in Tabrauw regency, were producing and selling the coconut copra to Bitung, Nord Sulawesi in huge quantities, ranging from 2 up to 5 tons per month. The objective was to help Bitung in providing its export commodity demand. This data shows that coconut in Tabrauw regency has a promising future as a superior commodity and an empowering resource for the coconut farmers.
Steps To Develop The Coconut Downstream Sector Focused in Tabrauw Regency
Back in 2019, together with Wetlands International Indonesia, BI held an FGD (Focused Group Discussion) to map the potential of coconut in Tabrauw. They agreed upon a recommendation to initiate corporatization for coconut farmers to empower the MSME of the coconut commodity in Tabrauw.
In September 2021, BI (Bank Indonesia) representative in West Papua mentioned that they had already initiated a partnership with the University of Papua (Unipa) Manokrawi and PT Barco regarding carrying on that project.
PT Barco and the local government will assist in high-quality coconut oil production. The company has already chosen three districts in Tabrauw regency as samples for the induction of the project. The three districts are Sausapor, Bikar, Wikor.
The decision has been taken considering transportation access and the quantity of coconut copra plantation. Coordination from the local government with the coconut copra farmer will be the following step to ensure the forming of coconut farmer cooperatives in West Papua.
Meanwhile, BI held hands with Unipa Manokrawi through a contract to assist from the human resources aspect. They will offer training and knowledge transfer to facilitate the local coconut farmer’s optimization of the copra production process.
All those strategic steps were aimed to solve the current issues endured by the coconut farmers in Tabraw. The issues were spinning around the quality and quantity of coconut derivative products, selling price, supply chain, and the farmers’ coconut copra drying process, which is still traditional and quite demanding in terms of time and energy.
Not only, but managing the waste, and the environment, finding the environment-friendly technology and innovation are also part of the issues that stakeholders should be aware of to carry on the project.
Yet, the fact that Indonesia is the largest coconut producer makes this prospective downstream sector in Tambrauw, West Papua, a new hope for the entire country. It will help to provide a massive great product that is beneficial to meet the needs in this country and worldwide use.
