As dark clouds gathered in the morning sky, Indonesian apple farmer Ali Akhbar hurried to finish spraying pesticides onto his trees before yet another afternoon downpour.
It was officially the start of the dry season in East Java Province, but non-stop rains caused havoc for thousands of apple growers such as Akhbar again this year — upsetting the flowering season, damaging blossoms and shrinking harvests.
The unseasonable weather has also caused an increase in pests and diseases, forcing some growers to take out loans to keep up with the surging cost of pesticides, to ensure that years of work do not go to waste.
“It’s so difficult now — the weather is unpredictable,” said Akhbar, 49, a resident of Andonosari village in East Java, which is home to the country’s largest apple orchards.
He used to spray pesticides on his crops once a week, but must do it twice weekly now, and uses more potent chemicals.
After years of similarly unpredictable weather, disappointing harvests are barely enough to cover farmers’ production costs, Akhbar said.
Agriculture experts blame climate change for the prolonged rainy season and a rise in temperatures that poses a serious threat to Indonesian apple farming, a sector that once brought stable incomes for thousands of rural families.
Apples are not native to Indonesia. The fruit is said to have been brought to the country by Dutch colonizers in 1930 and first planted in the Pasuruan regency, where Andonosari village is located.
However, from its heyday in the early 1990s, when the number of trees reached nearly 10 million, the sector has quickly declined. There were only about 2.4 million trees left by 2016, official statistics showed.
Successful apple-growing needs just the right amount of rain and sunshine, as too much or too little can severely affect the fruit’s quality.
“The problem is, it’s getting hotter,” said Otto Endarto, a researcher at the Indonesian Citrus and Subtropical Fruits Research Institute at Indonesia’s Ministry of Agriculture.
“Some farmers are trying to move to higher ground for cooler temperatures, but climate change is making the weather erratic, and the rainfall is increasing. [This weather] is the enemy for the apple crop,” he said.
The government institute has been researching apple varieties that could adapt to the changing local climate, but so far it has not been successful.
Many apple growers in the region have started switching to planting oranges, which they say are easier to maintain, or have begun growing other produce on the same plot of land.
Since 2017, Ahmad Solikin has replaced most of his apple fields with oranges, and now just one hectare of his six-hectare plot has apples.
“Oranges don’t need a lot of treatment,” the 50-year-old grower said, adding that he only needs to use pesticides every two weeks on oranges, compared to twice a week for apples.
Many local growers fear that apple orchards could become a thing of the past in Indonesia unless the state steps in with financial aid.
“If this continues, we don’t know about the future of apple cultivation in Indonesia,” said Heri Subhan, 45, the chairman of Citra Alami, a local group for farmers. “Apple farming has lost its glory.”
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