Suherdjoko, Grobogan – Grobogan, previously one of the poorest regencies in Central Java, is now known as a soybean production center and a major rice producing center.

The regency is the second biggest in Central Java in terms of area, spanning 197,586 hectares, and is inhabited by around 1.4 million people, 62 percent of whom are farmers. A third of its area is made up of non-irrigated farmland and the remainder is forest.

Farmers in the region were left disadvantaged when the government opened the country to bean imports, allowing higher quality varieties to enter the market.

"The majority of people are farmers, so when the agricultural sector is volatile, we are the most susceptible. Farmers here are the ones adversely impacted by soybean imports. Grobogan produces 30 percent of the province's soybean supplies," said Grobogan Agricultural Office head Mochammad Sumarsono.

Poor farmers in dire need of hard cash were often lured into selling their crops to middlemen for low prices before the harvest, sacrificing their toil in the field to compensate for debts incurred during the off-season.

Farmers in Grobogan also once were reluctant to expand beyond their local variety of crops, which reaped less profitable harvests.

However, as of 2005, they began to gradually form groups, exchanging information about seedlings, crop prices and other issue, learning from and protecting one another. The solid groupings are seen as a way of preventing intervention by middlemen.

Sumarsono said the number of such groups in Grobogan was growing. Soybean farmers across the regency's 17 districts have formed groups, with at least five in each district.

Soybean farms are located in Pulo Kulon, Kradenan, Gabus, Toroh and Tawangsari districts, spanning 26,000 hectares in total.

"The area of soybean farms fluctuates. In 2007, there were only 21,000 hectares, with each hectare producing 2.4 tons," Sumarsono said.

"The farming system is considered quite good. Other areas in Central Java can only produce 1.6 tons per hectare. Here, we are able to create the superior Grobogan soybean variety which is nationally certified."

The Grobogan variety seedling was developed from the Malabar variety, which Grobogan farmers predominately grew beforehand,

The local agricultural office conducted studies, taking into account the regency's natural surroundings, and eventually produced the Grobogan soybean.

The new variety has a shorter planting period of only 79 days compared to other varieties, including Lumajang Bewok, 90 days, Malabar and Petek (85 days) and Wilis (90 days).

The Grobogan seedling also produces taller plants, with leaves falling during the immediate approach of harvest, helping farmers during the processing phase.

"For farmers, a difference of 10 planting days is very helpful. We can till the land again to plant the next crops. This is called time efficiency," said Ali Mukhtar, a farmer from Pulo Kulon who won first prize in the National Soybean Intensification Contest in 2007.

The central government has not yet been able to provide seed assistance to farmers.

"In 2007 farmers were persistent in growing the Grobogan variety, which is more profitable, but the government could not provide the variety because it had not yet been nationally certified," said Sumarsono.

"Subsequently, we had to return Rp 2.4 billion (around US$266,000) in subsidies intended to help farmers buy seeds."

To avoid a similar situation in the future, the local agricultural office has made efforts to ensure the certification of Grobogan variety seeds by the end of this year. "Hopefully, funds to help farmers can be disbursed so farmers can obtain seeds more easily and for less," he said.

Thanks to the Grobogan bean, farmers were able to produce 51,000 tons of soybeans in 2007, and will be hoping for a bumper harvest this season.