A Bhumitara Foundation Field Update
The first phase of our capacity-building program in Sulangai Village, Badung Regency, Bali has wrapped up, and the energy farmers brought to it is still on our minds.
This session marks an early step in a wider effort we are running across 10 banjar in Kecamatan Petang, where our team supports vanilla farmers through structured training, technical guidance, and ongoing field visits. In Sulangai, what stood out most was the strong turnout and engagement from women farmers, who showed real appetite for learning the finer points of premium vanilla production.
Much of the discussion centered on curing and drying, the stage where an ordinary bean becomes a high-value one. Questions came fast and specific, covering temperature control, fermentation timing, and the small adjustments that determine final quality. Alongside this, there was genuine curiosity about sustainable cultivation practices, since healthy vines and careful post-harvest handling are two halves of the same outcome.
This kind of participation tells us something we already believed but rarely see demonstrated so clearly, this early in a program. Vanilla farming is not a single skill. It is a chain of decisions, starting in the garden and ending at the drying rack, and each link in that chain shapes what a farming family ultimately earns.
What struck our field team most was not just the turnout, but the depth of it, especially for a first session. Farmers pushed back on assumptions, asked follow-up questions, and connected new techniques to problems they were already facing on their own land. That kind of engagement cannot be manufactured through a lecture. It comes from people who see a direct path between what they are learning and what they stand to gain.
This is only the beginning. Further sessions in Sulangai and across the remaining banjar will build on what surfaced here, deepening both cultivation practices and post-harvest skills as the program continues.
We remain convinced that the future of Indonesian vanilla will not be built from the top down. It grows through collaboration at the village level, through knowledge that farmers can put to work immediately, and through communities given the space to shape their own path forward. The strength women farmers brought to this first phase is a clear sign of where that future is headed.
Together with farmers, we grow. Together with vanilla, we create value.
Yayasan Bhumitara Indonesia Lestari