Indonesian vanilla farmer Augustinas Daka stands with the vanilla plants

The Vanilla Connection

An Indonesian farmer connects to the U.S. market

Story by Nic Corbett | Photos and Video by Thomas Cristofoletti
September 2018

The delicate procedure must be performed at the precise moment a flower blooms.

In Indonesia, vanilla farmer Agustinus Daka uses a toothpick to pollinate each orchid on his farm by hand. About nine months later, he returns to pick the vanilla beans that have matured on the vine. No insect here naturally pollinates the flower, which originates from Central America.

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Farmer Agustinos Daka, 61, pollinates the vanilla orchids on his farm by hand
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Farmer Agustinos Daka, 61, pollinates the vanilla orchids on his farm by hand
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Farmer Agustinos Daka, 61, harvest vanilla beans in his farm.
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Vanilla farmer Agustinos Daka, 61, sharpens his machete in the courtyard of his house.

Each morning, the 61-year-old farmer sharpens his machete to prepare for the day. He uses the blade to prune trees that provide shade to his flowering vanilla vines.

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Vanilla farmer Agustinos Daka, 61, sharpens his machete in the courtyard of his house.

Beyond Subsistence

Agustinus, who goes by Agus, is the leader of a small group of vanilla bean farmers in his village in Papua, an isolated province with Indonesia’s highest poverty rate. Here, most farmers only grow crops for their families to eat.

“I want my village to move beyond subsistence,” Agus said.

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Indonesian vanilla farmers harvest the crop
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View of lake Sentani, a few km outside the capital town of Jayapura.

With USAID support, Cooperative Business International (CBI) established a global supply market for Indonesia’s vanilla and helped farmers rehabilitate abandoned vanilla farms and establish new ones.

Agus’s income doubled in two years.

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Farmer Agustinos Daka, 61, harvest vanilla beans in his farm.
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Farmer Agustinos Daka, 61, harvest vanilla beans in his farm.

Agus works with his 20-year-old son, Wilson, to plant cuttings of a vanilla bean plant to expand his farm.

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Farmer Agustinos Daka, 61, works with his 20-year-old son, Wilson, on his vanilla bean farm, planting a cutting of a vanilla bean plant.
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Farmer Agustinos Daka, 61, works with his 20-year-old son, Wilson, on his vanilla bean farm, planting a cutting of a vanilla bean plant.
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Farmer Agustinos Daka, 61, works with his 20-year-old son, Wilson, on his vanilla bean farm, planting a cutting of a vanilla bean plant.

After Agus harvests the beans, he sells them to a cooperative, where they are dried, the first step in a supply chain that sends his crop to the U.S. and around the world.

“I am proud that my product is being exported to America,” he said.

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Vanilla farmer Agustinos Daka, 61, takes the beans he harvests to sell at a cooperative
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Vanilla farmer Agustinos Daka, 61, takes the beans he harvests to sell at a cooperative

From Farm to Factory

The beans are transported to a spice factory in Klaten — a city on another Indonesian island about 1,900 miles away.

Here, Sam Filiaci, CBI’s senior vice president for Southeast Asia, monitors operations with Eko Rahayu Sutanti, factory manager, and Uning Imbi Purnaning Dewandari, deputy factory manager.

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Sam Filiaci, senior vice president of Cooperative Business International (CBI) for Southeast Asia, walks around the spice factory he operates with Eko Rahayu Sutanti, factory manager, and Uning Imbi Purnaning Dewandari, deputy factory manager.
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Klaten (Indonesia). Sam Filiaci, senior vice president of Cooperative Business International (CBI) for Southeast Asia, walks around the spice factory he operates with Eko Rahayu Sutanti, factory manager, and Uning Imbi Purnaning Dewandari, deputy factory manager.
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A list of American clients for BCI spice factory.

Made in America

The factory uses equipment imported from New York, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana and Kansas. Meanwhile, Agus’s vanilla ends up in American grocery stores; it’s used in McCormick’s vanilla extract and Costco’s vanilla ice cream. “Even though we talk about the 700 people working in this facility, the employment that it creates in the United States or the destination market is even greater,” Sam said.

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Sam Filiaci, senior vice president of Cooperative Business International (CBI) for Southeast Asia, walks around the spice factory he operates, which uses imported equipment from across the U.S.
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People at work at the Cooperative Business International (CBI) spice factory in Klaten.
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People at work at the Cooperative Business International (CBI) spice factory in Klaten.
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Sam Filiaci, senior vice president of Cooperative Business International (CBI) for Southeast Asia, walks around the spice factory he operates, which uses imported equipment from across the U.S.
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Sam Filiaci, senior vice president of Cooperative Business International (CBI) for Southeast Asia, walks around the spice factory he operates, which uses imported equipment from across the U.S.
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View of the test labs of the Cooperative Business International (CBI) spice factory in Klaten.
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Sam Filiaci, senior vice president of Cooperative Business International (CBI) for Southeast Asia, walks around the spice factory he operates with Eko Rahayu Sutanti, factory manager, and Uning Imbi Purnaning Dewandari, deputy factory manager.

Sam is from upstate New York and has worked overseas for more than 40 years. He’s passionate about helping Indonesians improve their lives. “Vanilla and these other high-value crops that we grow and produce are a tool,” Sam said. “They’re a tool to helping farmers educate their children, build their houses, get health care.”

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Workers process vanilla beans at the Cooperative Business International (CBI) spice factory in Klaten

With the income Agus earns from selling vanilla, he can afford better health care for his family — his 4-year-old granddaughter Juanita suffered a bout of malaria, and his wife Juliana, 50, has diabetes.

“Now, I have hope for a better life for my family,” he said.

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Juliana Soro, wife of Agustinos Daka, collects vegetable in their farm.
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Juanita, Agus’s granddaughter, wait for her lunch inside the family's house.
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Agustinos Daka's family has lunch at their house.

About This Story

Through CBI, USAID supports over 5,000 Indonesian small farmers who grow spices such as vanilla, pepper, cloves and nutmeg — and directly connects them with major global businesses, like Maryland-based McCormick & Company.

Farmers earn higher wages as a result of the partnership, and the spices contribute to McCormick’s growth and expansion.

In 1984, USAID and the National Cooperative Business Association (NCBA) established CBI Global, an industry leader that connects coffee and spice farmers to more than 160 companies in over 40 countries. USAID continues its partnership with McCormick and CBI as part of the Sustainable Cooperative Agribusiness Alliance, which started in 2017 and ends in 2020.

CBI’s Indonesia affiliate, PT AgriSpice Indonesia, is the region’s major spice processor and exporter and the global sourcing partner of McCormick in Indonesia. CBI partner Nimboran Kencana Coop works directly with spice farmers like Agus in Papua.

This program contributes to the U.S. Government’s Feed the Future initiative to combat global hunger.

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