Authors : Zulkarnain Lubis, Syahbudin Hasibuan and Yusniar Lubis
Abstract: The increasing demand for coffee either domestically or internationally is increasingly making coffee as an important commodity in the Indonesian economy. The commodity has a main contribution in generating foreign exchange and plays an important role on providing employment in downstream industry and the trade sector. Among the coffee producers of Indonesia, North Sumatra is one of the major producers and Pakpak Bharat Regency is one of the coffee-producing areas of North Sumatra. Even though coffee is a major commodity for the Pakpak Bharat Regency, as a whole, the contribution of coffee to the regency is still very small and the coffee production is relatively not increased even tended to decrease. Therefore, this research was conducted to find out cultivation techniques implemented by the local farmers of Pakpak Bharat, the role of coffee on the people economy and the coffee marketing in Pakpak Bharat. Based on the data collected, it can be said that Pakpak Bharat has a potential to be developed as a center of coffee production, considering the big number of farmers who cultivate coffee. However, it is found that the coffee farmers have averagely narrow land with traditional cultivation method as well as a lower bargaining power in marketing their product. Another problem is that the coffee only focused on the Northern region and the farmers with relatively larger land area have no interest to cultivate coffee. Therefore, it is required to implement a more intensive promotion and extension to improve farmers’ skill and knowledge of coffee cultivation, to rearrange the marketing chain so that farmers can get a more efficient marketing and to expand the land for coffee planting.
Zulkarnain Lubis, Syahbudin Hasibuan and Yusniar Lubis, 2016. The Role of Coffee on Empowering People Economy in Pakpak Bharat Regency. The Social Sciences, 11: 399-406.