Farmer groups in Kaur Regency and Seluma Regency, Bengkulu from four villages:
Air Palawan Village – Tanjung Aur Village – Manau IX Village – Lubuk Resam Village is running the Archipelago Economic Ecosystem Development program with assistance from Walhi Bengkulu. The activity carried out is the construction of a drying house/greenhouse coffee as an effort to improve the quality of coffee.
This activity is based on the obstacles faced by farmers in traditional post-harvest processing of coffee which is highly dependent on weather conditions. The resulting coffee is of poor quality. As a result, the selling price of coffee is low. In fact, the potential for coffee fruit in the four Kaur villages is quite abundant.
Apart from the physical construction of the drying house coffee, assistance to increase knowledge and skills in coffee processing is also a concern. With this, coffee farmers are expected to be able to increase production while maintaining coffee quality so that selling prices are increased. In the future, it could even become a quality coffee center.
The method and process for implementing development begins with a meeting of farmer group members in their respective villages to determine the target location, implementation time, and needs for development. greenhouse coffee. The entire process of building coffee drying houses in four villages was carried out in mutual cooperation by each farmer group in each village.
As for the size of the coffee drying house, the size and capacity varies in each village. In Air Palawan Village and Manau IX Village the size is 5×10 meters with a capacity of 1–1,2 tons of red picked wet coffee. In Lubuk Resam Village, it measures 6 x 10 meters with a capacity of 1,2 tons. The Tanjung Aur Village coffee drying house has the largest size, namely 5 x 12 meters with a capacity of 2 tons.
The construction time for building coffee drying houses in each of the four villages takes an average of between 4 and 5 days. Even in the midst of their respective activities, such as in Manau IX Village which coincides with harvest time. However, the community created a system of alternating work so that they were able to complete the construction on time.
Currently, this coffee drying house is routinely used and has succeeded in improving the quality of the coffee produced.