Processing Coffee, Building Hope: Tanjung Batu Village Coffee

The Kerinci Mountain area in Jambi has great potential to develop coffee production. The fertile volcanic soil, altitude, and other natural conditions are very suitable for coffee cultivation. Although the natural conditions are supportive, the Tanjung Batu Village Community, Kerinci Regency, Jambi has difficulty in processing coffee. For coffee processing, the Tanjung Batu Village Community still uses the traditional process, namely coffee beans are spread on the ground or on tarpaulins under direct sunlight. In other words, they depend on weather conditions. As a result, they often find raw coffee beans that are moldy, even in a severely damaged condition.

Mold in coffee appears due to improper storage or an imperfect drying process. This moldy coffee is dangerous to health because it is likely to contain mycotoxins, toxic substances produced by several types of mold. Even if forced to be processed, moldy coffee has an unpleasant aroma and taste. Defective quality coffee is priced very cheaply on the market. Or the worst fate, the coffee beans are not sold.

In order to overcome these problems and to increase the selling value of coffee products, the Tanjung Batu Village Community built a coffee drying house by utilizing Direct Funding from the Nusantara Fund. The 3,5x5,5 meter coffee drying house is equipped with a temperature and humidity controller. They also procured equipment such as a wet grinding machine and a dry grinding machine so that the production process is faster. The two machines have different functions. The wet grinding machine is intended for coffee production using the honey process and full wash process, while the dry grinding machine is for natural method production.

The Tanjung Batu Village community also created a warehouse for storing raw coffee beans to maintain product quality. The existence of the infrastructure and supporting equipment will be utilized directly by the 43 members of the People's Organization. They also received training in coffee processing methods honey and full wash, as well as operation and maintenance of coffee grinding machines.

In addition to fulfilling infrastructure and equipment, the Tanjung Batu Village Community also tries to collect coffee harvests from people outside the organization. The goal is not only to accommodate as many raw coffee beans as possible but also to help the economy of the community that has so far depended on middlemen. This collection activity is arranged in such a way, such as choosing a location that is easily accessible to farmers, equipped with sorting facilities, quality assessment, and packaging.

From the collection activity, they were able to collect 2,5 tons of coffee. The amount is relatively small because during the collection period the price of coffee was rising and the organization's capacity was not enough to accommodate too much coffee. For information, the coffee plantation area in the area has an area of ​​300 hectares.

Although in implementing the program there are several challenges that they have to face, such as the scarcity of materials for drying houses in the area and the increase in coffee prices which has reduced the total target for collecting raw coffee materials, it can be said that they have succeeded in reaching a new point of progress.

With the infrastructure of the drying house, they are no longer dependent on the weather and good harvests can be maintained. Likewise, equipment and networks with coffee farmers have secured supplies for the production process. Organized coffee raw material collection activities allow farmers to get quality raw materials. Coffee processed from quality raw materials certainly has a higher selling price on the market. This is a new strategy that can be carried out by the Tanjung Batu Village Community to increase the selling value of coffee products and of course support their collective economic efforts.