Smallholder teak marketing: current practice, problems and opportunities

In most forest product sectors, access to and understanding of market information equates to economic and bargaining power. For smallholder teak producers, market information is inadequate, difficult to access, and not publicly available. Teak producers didn’t know how wood quality affects the price. Similarly the teak industry is not fully informed regarding the potential of smallholder teak production, including the available standing stock, the real and potential quality of the stocks, the resource location, and how to deal with teak producers. The objectives of the study are to enhance market access by smallholder teak pro ducers and to establish clear understanding of current practices, problems and opportunities in creating market linkages. The study was conducted in Gunungki dul district, Yogyakarta on July 2007 – June 2008. There are five factors that determined teak producer’s perception on the best time to cut their teak tree: natural r otation; urgent cash need; market price; market demand; and other factor. On average, 80% of producers cut teak tree when they need cash and 14% of them harvest when tr ees achieved biological/economic maturity. Teak producer prefer to selling standing trees and still act as price taker. The challenging in improving smallholder teak marketing is increase quantity and quality of logs and reduced asymmetric market information. This can be achieved through the application of better silvicultural practices and improvement of their market capacity. Specifically, they should improve their understanding on market specifications and market channels and conduct collective marketing to achieve economics of scale

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