Yesterday I wrote about coffee, so today I'm going to talk about cocoa. This Mr Made is the most amazing farmer I've had in Indonesia!
Story from Mr. Made, A Cacao Farmer
I Made Sugandi is a cacao farmer living in Jembrana, Bali. He started to be a cacao farmer because of his previous experiences in Japan- he worked as vegetables farmer in Japan since 2000. He realized that Japanese people like to eat chocolate but cacao doesn’t grow in Japan. It is a great opportunity for Mr. Made because cacao grows really good in Indonesia, especially in his village called Jembrana which located in Bali island. On 2011, Mr. Made returned to Bali and started to learn how to grow cacao. His sincere dream is to be a cacao farmer so Japanese people can enjoy chocolate as much as they want to have. Then, he visited Research Organization in East Java and learnt about cacao. He got a lot of knowledge and experiences that changed his mindset to be a farmer who really work meticulously on his farm, just like what his leader does in Japan.
He started to grow cacao in an area of 5 hectares with premium quality. He obtained many organic certifications for his cacao plantation. Now, he has 8 hectares cacao plantation and manage a group of farmers. This group has 30 members which working on 55 hectares of cacao plantation. Mr. Made successfully exported his cacao to 4 countries: French, Belgium, Germany, and Japan.
Description About Cacao
Cacao grows at 300 m land above the sea in Jembrana, Bali. The cacao variety type is Trinitario with clones as follows: MCC 02, MCC 01 and BLB 050. All of those clones are superior cacao with premium quality which graded by its size as Grade A and Grade B. Farmers harvest the cacao and leave it for 3 days until they crack the pods without breaking the beans. After that, they do fermentation for 7 days in a box. Then, they dry the cacao beans under the sun and stir it 3 times a day. Finally, they sort cacao beans and choose only the best quality one to distribute for customers.
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