Heading towards sustainable cacao agribusiness system (a case study in North Luwu, South Sulawesi, Indonesia)

Abstract

Cacao is one of the most potential estate crops in Indonesia, which are traded worldwide. At one hand, many efforts were conducted to improve its performance in terms of production, productivity, value added, and competitiveness. On the other hand, those efforts somehow pose threats to long term sustainability, environmentally and socio-economically. This study was aimed to reveal the complexity of the pathway towards sustainable cacao development in North Luwu, South Sulawesi, by providing a generic map of causal effect between elements that has role in North Luwu's cacao agribusiness system. The study was a qualitative study, relying on the depth of information gained through in-depth interviews with key actors, observations and document analysis. Information were then analyzed by using system thinking approach, which then illustrated in a causal loop diagram to show the dynamics in the system. The result shows that in practice, cacao agribusiness system is very complex due to the interrelatedness of technical aspects, social aspects, environmental aspects and economic aspects. The synchronization of all those aspects are very important in order to reach sustainability in cacao agribusiness system.