Biak Regency, Papua, is also known as “Hot Coral City” due to its infertile land. However, the land condition never reduces the farmers’ will to work. Under the training from Yayasan Bina Tani Sejahtera (YBTS), the farmers in Biak managed to cultivate tomatoes and chilis with a successful harvest result. The training program had positively impacted farmers in the northern, eastern, and western areas of Biak, Papua.

One of YBTS’ team leaders, Ganang Foton Prakoso, explained the importance of choosing suitable seeds and types of crops according to the condition of the farmlands. For example, it would be better for farmers in Biak to use seeds more suited for lower altitudes and more resilient toward extreme weather, such as Servo F1 and Gustavi F1. Ganang also added that even though the land in Biak tends to contain corals, many parts of the areas were suitable as farmlands. “If the composition was 70% soil and 30% coral, it’s still ideal to be used as farmlands,” he said.

Bomasi Romanasen is an assisted farmer who successfully grows tomatoes amidst extreme land conditions. In his farmlands in Kajasbo Village, Eastern Biak, he cultivated the superior tomato variety called Servo F1. Despite having only 300-400 tomato crops on his farmlands, the quality and harvest results were top-notch. Bomasi could harvest five tomatoes just from a crop.

The farmers’ productivity in Biak could be different depending on the size of their farmlands. Each village was facilitated with land ranging from a half to one hectare wide. Farmers could produce around 1.8 tonnes of tomatoes or 650 kg of chili with a half hectare of land.

For now, Ganang wants to prioritize training farmers to fulfill the local market’s demand. According to him, improving the farmers in Biak takes time. “We’re training the farmers from the beginning, so we need to adjust to their pace, and it’s not something we can’t rush. We can’t let the farmers immediately work on massive farmland. We need to trust the process,” he said.