Cocoa is a bittersweet crop for Indonesians plagued by low prices, pests

By Karima Anjani and Lewa Pardomuan
REUTERS , PINRANG, INDONESIA
Sunday, May 02, 2004,Page 9

For some people, chocolate sums up the sweetness of life.

But there are few smiles among the cocoa farmers in Indonesia's main growing belt on the island of Sulawesi. Pests are ravaging crops and poor prices have made life very difficult.

As harvest time approaches, the green has turned to golden yellow in the rice fields lining the lush, hilly route to Pinrang, 150km north of Makassar, the provincial capital of South Sulawesi.

Nodi, 63, is a cocoa farmer who lives in a traditional wooden house on stilts in Pinrang. Brown-skinned and wrinkled, she cultivates hun-dreds of cocoa trees in her backyard, where weeds and leaves cover the ground.

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