ACIAR Teak - Improving Economic Outcomes for Smallholders Growing Teak in Indonesia

The project aims to substantially improve the livelihoods of
smallholders growing teak in Indonesia. It expects to increase the
returns they receive from teak through improving silvicultural
technologies, introducing financing schemes that provide incentives to
participate in profitable teak, and improving their access to markets.

Teak
production and furniture manufacture is a major industry in Java. There
are about 1.5 million households in the region currently growing teak.

Although
teak has a high value, smallholder farmers are not benefiting from its
production as they should. The reasons for this include poor
silvicultural techniques, limited market knowledge and restrictive
timber regulation policies.

• Poor silvicultural techniques
  result in low quality timber. It is difficult for smallholders to
  improve their techniques because they lack the capital to invest in
  teak planting and cannot afford to wait for a full teak rotation before
  receiving returns.
• Smallholders tend to take prices that are
  often well below market rates because they have limited access to
  markets and limited market information.
• Policies such as
  cutting and transportation permits and registration procedures are
  designed for large-scale not smallholder timber production.

The
project will combine the expertise of CIFOR and ICRAF to focus on all
aspects of smallholder teak production. Local research expertise in
FORDA and IPB will be utilised to cover silvicultural and financing
issues respectively. ANU will provide specialist economic input.

• The expected outputs of the project include:
• Evaluation of current practices (silvicultural, financing, marketing);
• Farmer Demonstration Trials;
• Manuals/guidelines for improved practices (developed with key stakeholders);
• Financing schemes discussed and evaluated with key stakeholders;
• Greater market awareness amongst farmers and local development agencies; and
• Policy briefs and associated policy dialogue related to the regulatory framework.

The
project team will work with farmers and key actors in the teak
production chain to ensure the outcomes are grounded in the realities
of smallholder production systems. Leading government and
non-government agencies will be involved as members in the Project
Advisory Group (PAG).

The research generated by the project will
be used by farmer groups, extension and other rural development
agencies, financing institutions and regulatory institutions.

World Agroforestry Centre
ICRAF Southeast Asia Regional Office
Jl. CIFOR, Situ Gede
Sindang Barang, Bogor 16115
PO Box 161 Bogor 16001, Indonesia
Ph: +62 251 8625415, fax: +62 251 8625416
Email: icraf-indonesia@cgiar.org
For addresses of our offices in
Thailand, Philippines, China and Vietnam, see:
www.worldagroforestrycentre.org/sea