Soil health is intrinsically linked to the total health of our food system. It affects everything from plants to human well-being and the future of our planet.
According to Mr Robert Rodale, who first coined the term “Regenerative Agriculture” back in the early 1980s, it prioritises soil health while simultaneously encompassing high standards for animal welfare and worker fairness. The idea is to create a farm system that works in harmony with nature to improve the quality of life for every creature involved.
Today, Indonesia is one of the world’s largest producers of coconut products, producing approximately 400,000 MT of coconut sugar per year. As one of the top and fully-integrated producers of coconut sugar, IMC Organic has engaged with PUR Projet to work towards more regenerative practices in Java, Indonesia, with the overall goal of improving whole-farm systems that prioritize diversity and ecological resilience.
Beginning with a detailed desk review and field-based assessment with PUR Projet, we sought to understand the key challenges and opportunities within our farmer communities, while engaging in stakeholder discussions, in order to assess the project potential and draft a framework for implementation.
Being a USDA Organic and EU Organic certified company, our farmers are aware of the importance of farm management and soil health. Through our Internal Control System (ICS) teams, we begin to educate our farmer groups on agroforestry activities and agronomic topics. The latter can help support our regenerative agriculture efforts that include the integration of cover cropping, fostering on-farm diversity and integrating composting/mulching practices.
Beyond providing training, we have also focused our efforts on improving our farmers’ livelihoods by starting dwarf coconut plant trials through the establishment of local seedling nurseries, training on seed selection, planting, care, and monitoring, with the support for diverse systems that encourage bio and income diversity. This is an important step in ensuring the safety of our farmers when harvesting as they no longer need to scale tall and slippery mature coconut trees. Together with tools replacement and repair training, farmers are able to be more efficient and thereby improving their production sustainability while being empowered with technical and practical skills.
Learn more about our other agricultural practices in our series here.
Other notable activities include:
- Developing a curriculum of training sessions to support farmers on a number of key priority topics throughout the year that is shared by our ICS teams with farm networks.
- Diagnostics, provision, and improvement of current tools and their efficiencies.
- Repair workshops
- Agroforestry design in consultation with farmers, traders and key research institutions.
- Planting 20,000 trees
- Ongoing tree survival, health, and impacts.
IMC Organic is a BRCGS, USDA Organic, and EU Organic certified fully-integrated producer of coconut sugar. We seek to engage our stakeholders and farm communities with a focus on concrete actions and results in the field, for a successful transformation of holistic agricultural practices that not only meet our company goals but also create net beneficial impacts on our ecosystem and farmers’ livelihood.