Bagged copra in the Baubau warehouse

Please refer to the relevant page for a detailed description of coconuts and copra.

Buton is rich in copra production but has no processing facilities. As a result, all the copra collected from the region is on-forwarded to Ujung Pandang or to Surabaya for processing to a secondary or tertiary product.

This means that farmers in Buton are at the mercy of traders who offer fluctuating prices for the product in accordance with their own priorities at the time of sale. This means that more often than not the farmers are disadvantaged and often runied because of this unfair trading practice.

SAO Buton has begun in a small way to establish some equity in the copra market in Baubau by buying stock from farmers at fair prices and then trading this product on for cash sale in Java.

Development of this program will be described on this page as the program matures.