Archipelago Economic Development in People's Managed Areas (WKR) for Spice Commodities

The Folila Community (Fola Literasi Kalaodi) is in Kalaodi Village, East Tidore, Tidore City, North Maluku. Fola in Tidore means house. Members of the Folila Community are local communities where most of the members are part of or work as farmers.

Folila's objectives primarily focus on developing farming capabilities and agricultural management, especially for cloves, nutmeg, coconut, copra and other commodities commonly grown in Kalaodi. However, the ability of local farmers in agricultural production methods and developing agricultural production is still considered very limited, both in terms of knowledge and skills.

Not to mention the uncertainty of weather conditions during the harvest season. When the harvest coincides with the rainy season, outdoor drying cannot be done, so farmers have to rent space to protect the harvest. The accumulation of these problems means that farmers can only rely on limited individual work results.

To answer this question, the Folila Community is accompanied by WALHI North Maluku took the initiative to run the People's Management Area (WKR) archipelago economic development program for spice commodities. The program received support from the Nusantara Fund Direct Funding. There are three main activities in this program: making drying houses (Green House) nutmeg and cloves, preparing a storage warehouse for WKR production, and training in making clove leaf essential oil.

The series of activities began with a limited meeting between North Maluku Walhi and the Folila Community on December 15, 2022 in Dola hamlet, Kalaodi. The meeting was held to confirm and agree on the stages of implementing the program. In this meeting, elements of students from Khairun University and the sub-district level government were also involved to facilitate the program.

One unit of drying house (Green House) nutmeg seeds and cloves with a drying capacity of ±500 kg were built. The location of the drying house is in Dola Hamlet, Kalaodi and can be used by 42 Dola Hamlet Family Heads on a rotational basis based on the availability of the capacity of the clove and nutmeg drying house. Public enthusiasm for drying houses is very high. It even ignited the community's enthusiasm to develop and build similar things in other hamlets.

A storage warehouse for the production of nutmeg and cloves from the WKR community was also built in Kalaodi, with a capacity of 5 tons. This storage warehouse is targeted to be a temporary storage place before delivery to buyers. The storage warehouse is managed directly by the Folila Community.

Training on making essential oil from clove leaves was held on 25 – 27 December 2022. There were 15 participants involved. The participants came from Kalaodi youth, the Kalaodi District Government, and internship students of the Faculty of Engineering, Khairun University of Ternate. 

This training not only provides knowledge and skills on how to produce essential oil from clove leaves for participants, but is also able to change people's perspectives. 

That clove leaves that have been considered as waste actually have economic value as a basic ingredient for making essential oils. The new knowledge and skills obtained by the participants are expected to be able to encourage the processing of clove leaves into essential oil products that provide added economic value for the community in Kalaodi. The learning process and impact in the Nusantara Fund Direct Funding implemented by the Folila Community are:

1. The process of making a drying house in Dola hamlet has encouraged the initiative of the Kalaodi Village Government together with the community and Walhi North Maluku to build additional drying houses in 3 other hamlets, namely Kola, Golili and Suwom hamlets. According to the Village Government and the community, this drying house is very helpful in answering the problem of post-harvest handling of cloves and nutmeg.
2. The Kalaodi Village Government has actually received facilities from the Social Forestry Working Group in the form of a clove oil distillation machine and a clove fruit threshing machine. However, the machine is not used because the facility is not accompanied by training in equipment use skills. Knowledge and skills in using a distillation machine are one of the materials presented in the clove leaf essential oil making training. So that residents can operate and utilize the distillation machine that was previously not used for processing clove and nutmeg leaves into essential oils.
3. The production storage warehouse is still intended to support the production of cloves and nutmeg from 1 nutmeg and clove drying house. If the drying houses in the other 3 hamlets are built, the stock of production in the storage warehouse will increase.

By looking at these achievements, here are some points of recommendations for follow-up actions from the Nusantara Fund Direct Funding program that has been carried out:

1. Additional drying houses in Kalaodi District and Walhi North Maluku assisted village in Gane.
2. Encouraging the setup of local seed houses and organic fertilizer and pesticide production houses in Walhi's assisted bases, North Maluku (Kalaodi and Gane).
3. Collaborating with the Regional Government of North Maluku to provision of post-production facilities and permits for WKR in Kalaodi and Gane.
4. Survey and mapping of the availability of sources of raw materials for WKR Kalaodi and Gane production.
5. Testing of samples of clove leaf essential oil products in Kalaodi and village coconut oil in Gane.