Organic vegetables for education savings

For Moluccas especially Ternate people, farming is the main livelihood since the area is so fertile that they can plant anything, especially vegetables.

Kamil, 45, is one of these farmers living in Ternate. He became a farmer in 1998. With 0.5 hectare of land, Kamil has planted many vegetables such as tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers. He cultivated his land in a non-organic way for many years.

However, everything changed when Wahana Visi Indonesia (WVI) assisted his village and introduced them to organic farming. To promote organic techniques, WVI holds organic farming competitions for farmers in Ternate. Kamil joined in this competition with other members of Timamo, a local farmers group.

The group won the competition!

With this success, Kamil had a chance to join in a farming training in Poso. Kamil changed his farming habits after learning new methods during the Poso training. He decided to cultivate his farm using organic methods.

He planted pakchoy (a type of mustard), water spinach, spinach, and tomato. Kamil found many improvements after he used organic techniques. His harvest was much better compared to when he used non-organic technique.

The Kamil and Timamo farming groups still cultivate the land using organic techniques. Kamil uses the vegetables sale profits for an education savings fund for his children.

"In the last three months, we used the vegetable sales revene to provide for our daily needs. Usually I save 100,000 rupiahs for my children's education," said Kamil enthusiastically.