Loksado residents enjoy improved cinnamon price

Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan 22/9 (AntaranewsKalsel) - Dayak tribes in Loksado, South Hulu Sungai (HSS), South Kalimantan, are now smiling to enjoy the improved price of cinnamon.

"When the river cruising expedition came to Loksado, we saw many people peeling cinnamon to pick up their wood bark," said Uncle Anum, a member of the River Care Community (Melingai),  environmental group who conducted the expedition, in Banjarmasin on Friday.

The team talked with cinnamon farmers in Haratai Village. According to them, the cultivation cinnamon here has been for decades.

Bayah, a mother, on the porch of her house while cleaning cinnamon bark said, now the local community excited to produce cinnamon bark because the price is high enough.

"Now the price of dry cinnamon Rp30 thousand per kilogram, compared with rubber tapping only Rp5 thousand per kg, obviously more profitable to manage cinnamon," she said.

Based on the information, the Dayak Inland Loksado people have long been known as shifting cultivators, but then they are more understanding to live by gardening and then planted rubber, and continued with keminting (pecan), the last cultivated cinnamon.

According to them, cinnamon business is more promising because the marketing is not difficult after many buyers coming to their village which is about 30 km from the capital district of HSS.

Based on the description of cinnamon developed by Meratus Dayak is a type C. Burmanii with superior quality, number two after Sumatra.