Saving the Durian and Other Native Fruits
Last month, hundreds of fruit farmers and students demonstrated against the Trade Ministry in Jakarta, calling for a ban of imported apples. Various kinds of the fruit from diverse countries were undercutting apples grown in Malang, East Java, the country's apple growing center. But apples are not native to Indonesia, unlike the 450 known fruits such as the quixotic durian, the mangosteen, mango, salak and soursop. Why can only few of these compete with imported fruits within the country? Ironically, they are so unique, other countries have managed to reproduce them, often with better results. Alarmed at the potential loss of these horticultural treasures, a movement has begun to campaign for the restoration of rare and native fruit trees of Indonesia. Tempo English looks at the different ways native fruit cultivation is being revived and preserved.
March 4, 2014
Expedition of a Durian Collector
Karim Aristides hunts durians from across the archipelago. Some of the best varieties, which he's turned up in little-known, out-of-the-way places, he hopes will replace the deluge of inferior but better-preserved imports in local markets.
It wasn't a very striking tree. Two years old and two meters tall, its leaves were small and tapering, not as green as the leaves of other trees. At a glance it resembled a Christ
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