Sutopo is a seventy-eight-year-old rubber farmer of Sumatra who owns a small plot of old rubber trees (Hevea braziliansis). He planted most of his trees forty years ago from low-quality rubber seeds he gleaned from nearby state-owned rubber plantations.
© 2017 Rahardhika Utama
In general, the rubber tree is no longer productive for latex taping after twenty years, and trees that are germinated from rubber seeds produce lower yields of latex. Today, rubber farmers in North Sumatra are usually elderly persons as young people prefer working in the cities and leaving their parents struggling with their family land in the villages. The combination of elderly farmers and old rubber trees makes up for low productivity of the overall smallholder rubber sector in this area.
© 2017 Rahardhika Utama
“The Old Man and The Old Tree” captures the story of how the problem of low productivity that leads to farmers’ weak financial capacity plagues the livelihood of rubber producers in Indonesia.