SLEMAN – Established in 2000, the Alumni Association Universitas Pembangunan Nasional Veteran Yogyakarta (Ikata UPNVY) continues to strive in providing benefits to the community. Still in the framework of the 60th  Anniversary of UPNVY, this social organization pays serious attention to coffee farmers.

Against the background of coffee farmers in Cangkringan who have the Merapi Coffee brand, the production quality is still mass with a low selling price. It is not specialty coffee for the consumers who are coffee lovers of certain circles which has better selling prices. The process is not easy, because specialty is coffee with special treatment from planting to picking.

"Ikata wants to bring and introduce modernization to the coffee processing to Kebun Makmur Farmers Group on the slopes of Merapi," said the General Secretary of Ikata, Adi Tantra at Coffeetography Cafe, Magelang (10/2).

The man who is familiarly called Danda asserted that Ikata's commitment is to provide CSR in the form of providing seed assistance and harvest assistance to post-harvest processing. "Hopefully Merapi Coffee from Kebun Makmur will be better known as specialty coffee with premium quality green beans," he said.

For this mentoring activity, Ikata cooperates with the Magelang Coffee Community (KKM) who has already had experiences in accompanying the Kaliangkrik Magelang Farmers Group, which produces good quality specialty coffee. The distributed CSR is 4,100 Arabica and Robusta coffee seeds of various varieties.

Rinto from KKM explained that the mentoring is to produce 9th grade coffee which is more profitable in rupiah, while raising the name of the Merapi area coffee. "The assistance that we do is started from the nursery, the planter, to the picking because the quality of the coffee will be visible when it is being roasted or cooked," he explained.

The Chairman of the Kebun Makmur Sumijo Farmers Group highly appreciated CSR from Ikata. The hope through this help and assistance is that it can improve the welfare and living standards of the farmers on the slopes of Merapi.

"We learned a lot about modern coffee cultivation, post-harvest processing, the coffee shop industry, and the concept of coffee education tourism that we will soon realize them through the Kebun Makmur Cooperative on February 17," he said. (a11 / laz / tif)

Source:                                                              

https://www.radarjogja.co/2019/02/16/ikata-upnvy-angkat-brand-kopi-merapi/