Bridgestone offering contracts to Sumatra rubber farmers

Bridgestone’s subsidiary on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, PT Bridgestone Sumatra Rubber Estate, will enter into trading contracts with local rubber farmers; it is said these contracts will promote cooperation between the farmers and Bridgestone Sumatra Rubber Estate.

Indonesia’s Antara News reported Bridgestone Sumatra Rubber Estate’s president Togar Simanjuntak as saying the company will buy latex from the farmers at the prevailing market price under a transparent contract. He said the company already developed cooperation with rubber farmers in North Sumatra and other regions in the country by buying their latex and offering them training and seedlings.

“If the cooperation would be promoted to a more concrete form under contract it would be a stronger partnership,” said Simanjuntak. Although Bridgestone has distributed around one million rubber seedlings to farmers since 2005 in order to increase productivity, Simanjuntak describes productivity as still being relatively low, with each hectare yielding less than a million tons of latex.