JAKARTA, Indonesia (Reuters) – With sickles and slingshots in hand, farmers in Indonesia are guarding their chili plants from thieves.
Prices for the much-loved spice jumped five-fold in the past year to boost inflation and worry the government.
Around-the-clock patrols for chili farmers in Kediri in the eastern part of Java island have started as the price of the spicy ingredient reached $11 a kilogram: more expensive than beef and about a tenth of the minimum wage.
“Poor farmers are taking the whole family, their wife and children, to guard their chili fields,” said Sukoco, a farmer in Kediri, one of East Java’s biggest chili farming areas.
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“Now villages are empty at night while the fields are full of people.”
The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization said food prices hit a record high last month, exceeding 2008 levels when riots broke out in various countries.
Rising chili and rice prices helped push up Indonesia’s annual inflation in December to a 20 month high of nearly seven percent and spurred the country’s president and trade minister to urge households to plant food such as chilies at home.
Farmers have previously conducted patrols when chili prices were on the rise, but this time the price increase has alerted many to beef up security, such as doubling guards between 3 and 4 a.m. and 6 and 7 p.m., which are the most likely times for theft because some people leave fields to pray in the mostly Muslim country.
Sunoco said farmers are opting for slingshots over sickles once they single out thieves, who are mostly spotted when a chilly shrub shakes unnaturally. Thieves are responding by taking whole plants instead of picking each red pod.
