ASKOGO

Fast Facts on ASKOGO

Founded in 2008
Certified FLO in 2009 and Organic in 2010
Begins to export through Ujang Jaya in 2010
Members: 760 (500 ha for Arabica)
Region: Bener Meriah and Aceh Tengah
Elevation: 1,000 to 1,500 m
Harvest season: September to May
2010-2011: 11 containers exported
 

ASKOGO (Asosiasi Kopi Gayo Organic) was restructured in August 2008. They decided to set up a delegates system (per village) as the other organizations in this area. In January 2009 they were ready for the first general meeting including the farmers’ delegates to elect a new board. Askogo was inspected in August 2009. They finally got the FLO certificate on September 3rd of 2009. However they only started to export their coffee in September 2010 because they did not have any agreement with an exporter before this date. And they could not have an organic certificate issue before having set up an agreement with an exporter.

ASKOGO currently has 760 members organized in 13 villages (4 villages grow robusta and 9 villages grow Arabica). They all located in the regencies of Aceh Tengah and Bener Meriah. There are 13 collectors and 13 delegates which are elected from the 13 villages. The current Chairman is Edi, he is supported by Sakdan, the general manager, who is in duty of export work.

ASKOGO members grow their coffee from 1000m to 1500m above sea level. They usually harvest from September to May, staying without any cherry in June, July and August. The ideal shipping period would be December – August. Average yield per hectare is about 13,055.2 kg of cherries (1,676 kg exportable so 28 bags of 60 kg each).  

ASKOGO owns an office in the village of Simpang Teritit right on the boarder of Aceh Tengah regency and Bener Meriah regency. They also rent a warehouse owned by Ujang Jaya (the exporter). In this warehouse they receive the wet parchment at 40% moisture content. They hull the parchment and they dry it down to 16% moisture content in this same warehouse. When the collectors deliver cherries to the cooperative, they drop the bags in APKO wet processing station and the cherries are dispulped there then the beans are moved to Ujang Jaya warehouse to be dried, hulled and dried again. Once the green coffee is 16% moisture content this is shipped down to Medan (Ujang Jaya facility) for final processing and hand sorting.

Based on members’ estimations for 2010-2011 (Sep – May), the capacity of production for Arabica is almost 6,000 tons of cherries which is about 40 containers. Their objective is to be able to find international buyers for 24 to 36 containers. However the competition is huge in their area and local prices for conventional coffees are high, so they will need to get fast payments from their exporter to be able to convince their members to deliver the coffee to their cooperative. The role of each actor in the supply chain is already determined. ASKOGO is in charge preparing the green coffee in asalan form (16% m.c and 15% defects), then Ujang Jaya is supposed to find the buyers and to make the final sorting for export.

To view more photos of our Sumatran partners, visit the photo gallery.

Certifications

Trace this coffee's documents at FairTradeProof.org