Cloves #11

Hello everyone!

Today will be my last post! This one is about organic agriculture. Firstly I will be talking about what problems could arise when moving from conventional to organic practices for cloves. And secondly the level of organic clove production in Indonesia.

Shift to organic
Thinking back of my post on pests and diseases I would say this would be the largest problem on shifting to organic. Diseases like Valsa eugenlae and Cryptosporella eugeniae are the most major diseases and damaging for clove trees. Both these diseases are controlled by means of pesticides and shifting to organic would mean that new ways to controll the disease have to be found. Also a decrease in yield will be seen, as no more chemical fertilizer can be added to the trees.

Current state of organic clove production

Indonesia has many smallholder farmers which do not always have acces to pesticides and chemical fertilizer. This means that these farmers sometimes unintentionally produce in an organic way which to us western consumers sounds great. However to them it just means a lower yield and more pests & diseases within the plantation. Looking at Indonesia particularly I would say that producing organic wouldn't be profitable. This is due to nearly all of the clove production (90%) being used in the tabacco industry by making the so called: Kreteks.