SpiceUp Baseline Report – Summary of Bangka Province

November 2018

Introduction
This report is aimed to help SpiceUp consortium determine the right approach for the project, by studying
the key parameters of the demographic, farming-related activity, decision-making process, information
retrieval, and farm capital.

Using a simple random sample with 95% Confidence Interval and 5% margin of error, 397 farmers were
randomly chosen from the area that has most farmer’s population (resulting interview in 3 districts, 8 sub-
districts, and 17 villages). The sample also stratified based on age, resulting on 202 farmers with age less
than 40 years old and 195 farmers with age greater than 40 years old. This survey also includes 33% of
female farmers respondents. A detailed description of the methodology used is provided in the baseline
plan (annex 1).

General Statistics
The baseline focused on three main components: general information about the type of farmers,
information retrieval and farm inputs (fertilizer, pesticide, water use) and capital. Figures are presented
below and can also be accessed and viewed through 3 interactive maps (see hyperlink under the
subsequent components) and the following dashboard:
https://spiceup.akvolumen.org/library

1. General information about the type of farmers

See: https://icco-cooperation.carto.com/builder/08135236-581d-44e9-b639-5644e41e2a37/embed

- 77% of respondents have experience in pepper farming for more than six years, and 97%
respondent own their farm. Hence, the farmers are likely to stay in pepper farming.

- When preparing the farming land, 84% respondents also preparing drainage for their farm, and
55% respondents also considering the soil fertility. Only 19% respondent is preparing for
irrigation (with the water source from the river), while most farmers rely on rainwater for their
water source.

- Since most of the farmers did not remember their land area, to estimate the land area we are
counting the pepper trees instead. The median of number trees owned by the farmers are
around 700 trees (please see Figure 1a for further explanation).

- By dividing the total number of productions with the total number of trees, each tree produced
around 0.4 kg pepper (it should be around 1 kg if the production is optimal)1.

- From the harvest production figure above, 34% respondents stated that quality of harvest this
season is worse than two previous seasons, while 48% respondents stated that the quality stays

1 See http://bangka.tribunnews.com/2013/11/22/penghasilan-petani-lada-bisa-mencapai-rp-75-juta-per-bulan
 the same. Also, 58% respondent experienced more loss in the harvest rather than in two
previous harvest seasons.

- In addition, 30% of the respondents experienced tree losses, mostly because of the dry weather
and infections by the pest & disease. The average tree losses are around 33% from their initial
tree numbers.

- Trees infected by pest & disease usually are in the immature (not yet produce - TBM) plant
phase, that usually affected less than 25% of their total farm area (see Figure 1b & 1c).

- Ulat buku/penggerek batang/Lophobaris Pipheris are the main pest that attacks pepper trees,
and yellow disease are the main diseases attacking the pepper trees. The type of pest & disease
and their proportion can be found of Figure 1d. There seems to be a rather clear geographical
pattern in the occurrence of (a combination of) diseases.

- Despite the infected and losses trees because of pest & disease, 53% respondent stated they did
not use pesticides since they think it would not give much effect to the trees.

2. Information retrieval

See: https://icco-cooperation.carto.com/builder/ebe9ec9a-6c3b-4688-8e0b-8f532318de46/embed

- 87% of respondents have access to the phone, 46% of respondents use a smartphone, and 58%
of respondents have access to more than one smartphone in their house (see Figure 2a & 2b).

- Most of the respondents always have internet access at home, and sometimes they get internet
access at the farm (see Figure 2c).

- Regarding farming information, 53% of farmers rely on their self-experience while the other 34%
said that they got information from colleagues. Only 4% of respondents look up to the internet
as their information source (see Figure 2d).

- When being asked to rank the most needed information by respondents, pest & disease
management are being ranked as the first rank, followed by fertilizer advice and soil
management (see Figure 2e)

- Water management (irrigation & drainage), land preparation, and information about harvest are
assumed as less needed information (see Figure 2f).

- Besides being the most needed information, pest & disease management and fertilizer
information also considered as the information that is the hardest to get (see Figure 2g). 52% of
respondents explained that this information is hard to get because of no source of information
available (see Figure 2h). This needs to be discussed among the other WPs.
 - When being asked about the willingness to use the app, 28% of respondents said they’re willing
to use and pay for a small fee for it, while 44% are still in doubt (see Figure 2j).

3. Farm Inputs and Capital

See: https://icco-cooperation.carto.com/builder/c4427ece-04ca-418d-9aa1-45eca7e70eef/embed

- Fertilizers and woods (to support pepper trees) are considered as the biggest spending in the
farming activity. Hence, the effort to reduce the farming input cost should be concentrate on
these aspects. The list of spending can be seen in Figure 3a.

- For fertilizers, by dividing the amount of money spent on fertilizers with the number of trees,
the average price for fertilizers per tree is 0.3 Euro. The more trees farmers have, the bigger the
cost they need to spend. For example, some farmers need to spend around 832 Euro only for
fertilizers, while the average farmers only spend 180-300 Euro for fertilizers in one cultivation
period (see Figure 3b).

- The average usage of fertilizers is six sacks (300 kg), and the fertilizers are most used in the
mature-plant phase (last farming phase before harvesting). The list of the most used fertilizer
and the average usage of these fertilizers on each farming phase can be seen in Figure 3c & 3d.
Most farmers chose these brands because it is available in the local area and is easy to get
(Figure 3e). This figure can be used for further cooperation with fertilizers company in the
future.

- By multiplying the average number of trees (700 trees) x the average production per tree (0.4
kg) x the average pepper selling price per kg (3 Euro), the average income from pepper trees is
around 840 Euro (this figure seems not too high because of the current low pepper selling price
in the world). Compared to this figure, farmers already spend around 180-300 Euro only for
fertilizers.

- Based on the additional information from the FGDs, because farmers spend a lot of capital on
fertilizers, they tend to choose fertilizers based on the price (as cheap as they can) rather than
based on its quality, even though that means lesser harvest quality.

- Farmers also get subsidized fertilizer from the government, but it is limited to two sacks (around
100 kg) per household. Hence, the majority of fertilizers used are the non-subsidized (more
expensive) one.

- As mentioned previously, woods also are considered as one of the biggest spendings on pepper
farming. 85% of farmers prefer to buy the woods (instead of using free buffer plants) to support
the propagation of pepper trees because its simplicity (it can be used as soon as possible and
easy to set up) (see Figure 3f)
- Even though water, pest, and disease management are considered important information
needed by farmers, farmers did not spend too much money on these items. Irrigation is rarely
built since the farm is far from the water source. Hence the farmers only rely on rainwater. This
is an area of concern for our future interventions and should be discussed among the other
Work Packages.

- For the past three years, 67% respondents said they have enough capital for their farming while
other 16% said they have not enough, and the last 16% respondents are refusing to answer (see
Figure 3g). When the farmers have not enough capital, 50% of them will simply reduce the
number of trees or even stop planting the pepper trees (16%) (see figure 3h).

- Capital has become a huge issue for farmers. Additional information based on FGDs showed that
the current practice is farmers will borrow the fertilizers from the middleman if they did not
have enough capital, and they will pay their debt by their harvest later. Using this practice,
farmers cannot sell their harvest to other middleman, and usually, the price offered by these
middlemen is lower than the market price. The bank is less considered as a source of capital
lending because farmers afraid their assets will be confiscated when they failed to pay.

- However, as one additional note, instead of treating pepper farming as a main source of income,
the respondents treat the income from the pepper farming as an investment (e.g. for education
cost). 68% respondents stated they have other jobs besides pepper farming (that used for their
daily livelihood).
Appendix
Figure 1a. The distribution of number of trees. The histogram showed that the data is left-skewed.
Hence, we use the median rather than mean instead. The median of this distribution said the average of
trees owned by farmers is around 700 trees.

Figure 1b. The frequency of plants affected by pest & disease in each farming phase. From this figure,
most of the trees are affected in immature (not yet produce) plants.

Frequency of plants affected by pest & disease in each

farming phase
120 113
95
100

80

60
43
40 34
22 25
20 18 19
20
3 4 1
0
Early Planing Immature Phase Mature Phase

Never Often Sometimes Always

Figure 1c. The proportion of land affected by pest & disease. 15% respondents said pest & disease
destroyed more than half of their farm area.

Proportion of Land Affected by Pest & Disease

> 1/2 land 15.42%

1/4 - 1/2 land 28.28%

< 1/4 land 56.30%

0.00% 10.00% 20.00% 30.00% 40.00% 50.00% 60.00%

Figure 1d. The main pests & diseases attacking the pepper trees

The main pests attacking pepper The main disease attacking

trees pepper trees

12.68%

24.44%

34.08% 53.24%
51.39%
24.17%

Ulat buku Penghisap buah Penghisap bunga Kuning Busuk pangkal batang Daun keriting

Figure 2a. The accessibility and availability of phone and smartphone

 Phone Accessibility Smartphone Availability

50

41.56%

347 58.44%

No Yes More than One One

Figure 2b. Phone type used by respondents

Type of Phone Used

Non-smart phone (phone

54%
with physical keypad)

Smart Phone (Android) 46%

iPhone 1%

Figure 2c. Farmer’s internet access

Figure 2d. Farmers’ source to get information for their farming activity.
 Farmers' Information Source
52.90%

34.09%

8.08%
4.57%
0.35%

From From internet From From self- From media

colleagues government experience (print &
(field electronic)
agricultural
officer)

Figure 2e. Rank of information based on its importance according to respondents. Pest & disease control
being the most needed information, followed by fertilizer advice and soil management.

Figure 2f. Level of information needed regarding respondents’ opinion.

Figure 2g. Type of information based on the level of its difficulty to be obtained

Percentage of the difficulties of information to obtain

On pest & disease controlling 27.49%

On fertilizer advice 21.25%

On climate & temperature 16.98%

On soil management 15.31%

On harvest & post-harvest handling 9.75%

On land preparation 5.79%

On water management (drainage & irrigation) 3.43%

Figure 2h. The reason why information regarding fertilizer, pest & disease is hard to get
 Figure 2j. Respondent willingness to use the apps and to pay for it.
Respondent willingness to use the app Respondentwillingness
Respondent willingnesstotouse
useand
& pay
to
forthe
pay theapp
app
175
130
111
92
Use & pay the app 27.96%
19
Only use the app 4.79%
Yes Maybe No No Yes

Figure 3a. Proportion of the biggest spending of in pepper farming activity.

The Proportion of Farming Cost

126
112

Fertilizer Buffer Plants Seeds

Figure 3b. The amount of money spend for fertilizers compared with the number of trees.
 The amount of fertilizer cost based on the number of trees
50
Fertilizer cost (in IDR- million)

45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000 9000
Number of trees

Figure 3c. The most-used fertilizer brand by the farmers.

The Most-used Fertilizer Brands

Urea Pusri 44.32%

SP 36 Petrokimia 18.48%
NPK Kebomas 11.23%
NPK Mutiara 10.14%
NPK Wayang 5.92%
KCL Jerman Meroke 4.83%
NPK DGW 3.74%
KCL Kanada Mahkota 1.33%

0.00% 10.00% 20.00% 30.00% 40.00% 50.00%

Figure 3d. The total amount of fertilizers used based on brands on each farming phase. Because the data
is left-skewed, median is used to measure the average.
Phase
Total (in sacks)
Fertilizer Early Planting Immature phase Mature phase
SP36 Petrokimia 1 3 4 8
Urea Pusri 1 3 4 8
NPK Mutiara 1 2 2 5
NPK DGW 1 2 2 5
NPK Kebomas 2 2 3 7
KCL Jerman Meroke 1 2 2 5
NPK Wayang 1 2 3 6

Figure 3e. The reason why farmers chose their fertilizer brand.
 Reasons why respondesnt chose their fertilizer brand

Produce available in the local area 46.04%

Easy to get 26.07%

Cheaper than others 14.69%

Better quality than others 10.40%

Provided by the government 1.49%

The product is Organic/safe 1.32%

0.00% 10.00% 20.00% 30.00% 40.00% 50.00%

Figure 3f. Reason why farmers prefer to buy woods and used it as buffer plants rather than using free
cover trees.

Reasons why farmers prefer using woods as buffer plants

Can be used as soon as possible 37.28%

Already have the woods 18.51%

It's durable 6.13%

Easy to set up 28.76%

Food competition if using cover trees 9.32%

Figure 3g. The farmer’s capital sufficiency. However, this question added after get deeper understanding
from the survey that is ongoing. Hence, only 241 respondents (61% from total respondents) being asked.
To verify the result, three FGDs were conducted.

Did you have enough capital for the farming?

Refuse to answer 39

No 40

Yes 162

0 50 100 150 200

Figure 3h. The choices when farmers did not have enough capital. Most of them are simply chose to
reduce the production.

What did you do when you have no enough capital?

Reduce the number of pepper trees 50%

Refuse to answer 18%

Stop planting the pepper trees 16%

Switch to tin mining 8%

Switch to plant other plants 6%

Borrowing money 2%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%

Annex 1: SpiceUp Baseline Sampling Design

a. Location

The SpiceUp project has four target provinces (Bangka Belitung, Lampung, West Kalimantan, and East
Kalimantan) with the total area of 328,174 km2. Due to the wide area that we need to cover, this baseline
survey will be focused on Bangka Belitung and Lampung provinces (that contributes almost 90% of our
pepper farmers target population), while FGDs will be conducted at West Kalimantan.

To give the big picture of our survey areas, below is presented the candidate districts for our survey and
the distance between the capitals of each district:

1. Bangka Belitung (with its capital):

- West Bangka (Muntok)

- Bangka (Sungailiat)
- Central Bangka (Koba)
- South Bangka (Toboati)
- Belitung (Tanjung Pandan)
- East Belitung (Manggar)

2. Lampung:

- North Lampung (Kotabumi)

- West Lampung (Liwa)
- East Lampung (Sukadana)
- Way Kanan (Blambangan Umpu)
- Tanggamus (Kota Agung)
b. Sampling Techniques

From the map above, it is seen that the distances between each district in Bangka Belitung and Lampung
provinces are quite far. To give the balance between survey cost, survey time, distance coverage, and
resource allocation, this survey will be clustered on the districts where most of the pepper farmers
located based on the data of the crops estate statistics of Indonesia 2015-2017 (page 16-26) from
Directorate General of Estate Crops. Simple random sampling is being used to pick the sub-districts,
village, and the name of respondents. Also, to get a deeper analysis, in the village level the respondents
will be stratified based on age (< 35 & > 35). The overall design is drawn in the diagram below:

Bangka Belitung Lampung

Province Province

2 districts 3 districts

8 sub-districts 8 sub-districts

17 villages 12 villages

367 farmers 261 farmers

184 farmers age 183 farmers age 130 farmers age 131 farmers age
< 35 < 35 < 35 > 35
Using the Confidence Interval of 95% and margin error of 5%, minimum 380 respondents are required. To
anticipate the non-response, we will increase the sampling number up to 598 respondents, with the final
results below:

# farmers # of
Province District Sub-district population (KK) Village Sample
Bakam 15
Bakam 2,473
Bangka Mabat 15
Belinyu 1,945 Kuto Panji 23
Central Koba 1,249 Gantung 15
Bangka Sungai Selan 1,021 Sungai Selan 12
Payung 24
Payung 4,012
Bedengung 24
Batu Betumpang 20
Bangka Pulau Besar 3,445
Sumber Jaya Permai 21
Belitung
Tukak 18
Tukak Sadai 3,032
Sadai 18
South Bangka
Nyelanding 27
Delas 27
Air Gegas 27
Air Gegas 13,500
Air Bara 27
Sidoharjo 27
Ranggas 27
Abung
2,042
Tinggi Ulak Renggas 25
Tanjung Tanjung Raja 16
2,756
Raja Ulak Ata 17
North 2,207
Abung Barat Ogan Lima 27
Lampung
Sungkai Tanjung Jaya 15
2,460
Lampung Barat Gunung Raja 15
Hulu Beringin Jaya 15
2,512
Sungkai Tanjung Harapan 15
Argo Mulyo 15
Batu Ketulis 2,440
West Sumber Rejo 14
Lampung Way Tenong 2,390 Mutar Alam 29
Air Hitam 2,364 Gunung Terang 28
Total 49,848 598

On the village level, PT. CAN will collect the farmer name lists from the village head or farmer groups.