The Mangga Toba is a unique species, which only exists around Lake Toba naturally. It is also a trade mark by origin. It is a very special fruit:
- The time between harvesting and consumption is limited to just 2 days. The most other mango can stay much more longer
- If it is a organic Mango, it can be eaten with the skin. Nearly no other Mango can be consumed like this. The Mango skin has a lot of Antioxidants and tannin. It is healthy to eat the skin.
- The Mango is very small and soft. It is difficult to cut, because of the softness and the lot of juice, what is inside. For dried Mango or sliced Mango this Mango cannot be used. To use it for a longer time, it only make sense to take the juice and make something out of the juice. Or to sell the ripe fruit at the same day of Harvest.
- The Mango grow around Lake Toba naturally. More then 90 % of the trees not have been planted.
- The Mango trees like to stay together and they make huge networks with their roots. They communicate with them and even they can transport water from one to another tree.
- The Target Group
Everybody, who come to Lake Toba at a harvesting time, will see the ripe Mango getting sold at the road. You have to buy and to eat it. Out of this, the Mango Toba is well known by all the tourists, they come. It is time to honor the special mango Toba with a festival. The marketing of the festival is working by the social media of the existing contacts. In the time of Covid-19 there we expect, that the most visitors will come from Samosir and around Lake Toba. But still some people will come also from Medan and Jakarta and other parts of Indonesia. We don’t know, how many people will come. With all the lock downs and the actual Covid-19 Situation it is very difficult to say. We think at the moment, that each day will come something around 100- 200 people. With the setting we made in the Ecovillage, we will prepared to host also 500 people where we still easily follow the health protocol. We prepared already a health protocol for the event. You can look this here.All the booth of the festival will be installed on boats like a floating market at the beach in front of the Ecovillage. At the beach is all the time a nice wind, which make a Covid-19 transmission nearly impossible. There will be 5-8 Toba boats with the booth which hosts the UMKM Participants, to show their locally produced goods. Each presenter also show a product made out of the Mangga Toba.Only the opening Ceremony will be a central event, hold also outside. All other activities will hold on several places in the area. It will not be crowded. Also we work only with acoustic music and not a big Sound System. The guests should enjoy the nature and not a sound pollution. The guests can hear a lot of birds, which came back after we stopped the spraying of the Mango in 2014. A lot of Nature lovers and bird watchers also come to Silimalombu. - Sorts of Mango
It is a Festival for the Mango Toba. We celebrate this wonderful fruit which in unique in the world. - Owner of Mango Trees
The Mango Toba is an endemic species. In Silimalombu for example we have a natural Mango forest. The biggest tree is around 500 years old. You need 4 people to surround the stem. The land of Lake Toba is by the culture owned by family clans. The clans take care of the Mango tree and they are proud of the trees. If you have Mango Trees at your land your are blessed by god. In the harvesting time, then mostly the trees getting climbed by the owner family and also by some other helpers. Or the trees getting rent out for the harvesting, if the family can not handle this themselves. There are now planted plantations. But in a garden, the people already started to have also a Mango Tree.The Mango seasons are not each year the some. It can have two harvesting seasons a year, but also it can happen, that the Mango have for 3 years no fruits. It depends on the weather. If it is to dry or to wet, than the season is not successful. The actual season is maybe a 40 % season. That means the trees only have around 40 %, of this what is possible.To plan an income out of the Mango, it is difficult to calculate. The income of the Mango Toba is just an addtional income for the owner of the trees. And of course, if it is Mango season, than everything is going for the mango to get them harvested.A lot of Mango also just fall down to the ground. If they are not directly picked, then they are getting eaten by the pigs or the buffalo. Or they just get rotten there. If they are getting rotten there, the insects use this to give their eggs there. With the result that in the next season, a lot of Mango have worms inside. For this it is important, to collect all the fallen down Mango. But the owners have not the resource to do it and they don’t know, what to do with all of the broken mango.Some families have more, the other less mango trees. Maybe there around Lake Toba 3000 families, which have more then 3 mango tree and they will sell also the Mango.
- Why it is festival only for Mango
It is just a festival only for the Mangga Toba. It is made to show the speciality of the Mango Toba and to show the local people, what all they can make out of the Mango. We want to reach, that all around Lake Toba all the fallen down Mango are getting harvested also. This because:
– it will not be neccessary to spray the mango trees with chemicals anymore. Samosir is on the way to an international high end Ecotourism destination. It don´t fit, to spray anymore. Also for the people, they spary the Mango without any protection for the skin and for the lungs, it is a very dangerous thing.
– the spraying of the mango takes a lot of afford, which is not necessary. The farmer can save this money and can earn much more, if they go for processing the mango or to create an infrastucture, that the processing make sense.
– we want to show, what all can be done, especially form the fallen down manggo. We make for exapmple:
– Mango Wine
– Mango Vinegar
– Mango Grappa
– Mango Brandy
– Mango Icecream
– Mango Sanitizer
– Mango Sambal
– Mango Dodol
– Mango Juice
– Mango Bread
– Mango Hamburger
– Mango Toilet Cleaner
– Kompost Cair and Eco Encym
But for this the Mango needs directyl to be proecessed. And there is the way of fermenting and sterilizing the best way. We want to show all the participants of the festival easy ways to censerve the fruits in the harvesting time, to make products and to have an income out of this for the next year.The festival is an education program for the farmers and for the visitor. It is an example how to start a small and medium enterprise, based on the natural ressources, what a lot of farmers have. We have the focus just on this fruit to go deep in the knowledge about porcessing the fruit as a local small business for all the owners of a mango tree. Ratnauli Gultom is the new organizer of the UMKM in Samosir and she just use her own resources to start with an entrepreneurship campaign together with the Bupati of Samosir Vandiko Gultom, the BOPDT (Badan Otoritas Pariwisata Danau Toba) and the Ministry for Tourism and creative Economy.With the network of the UMKM also at the weekend of the 4th and 5th of June their is in Palippi the “Tuak Festival” to honor the Sugar Palm and to show, what all can be done out this wonderful tree. Also their we will be present to increase a network of local organic producers and to prepare a sustainable tourism. - Targets to get reached and Time span
– we want to empower the people and give them knowledge.
– we want to make an event with a setting with is conform with the “New Normal” in the Covid-19 Situation.
People need to meet and need to enjoy live together. We want to show with our framework, that it is
possible, when all the activities are getting done outside of closed rooms. Even a meeting with a few
people in Jakarta in a room of the ministry with Aircon is much more dangerous then the whole event of
Mango Festival. Why? The German Association of Aerosol Scientists discussed this in a statement with
they sent in an open letter also to the Chancellor Angela Merkel. Here you can look.
– we make the festival for one week, that it will not be crowded and the people really have the time to learn
all about the processing, that it is the time to speak with all the guests and to reach them, to learn about
an sustainable lifestyle. - Earnings of the Mango Farmer
it is difficult to say, what a farmer earns in one season. It can be a lot in a full season, if he has a lot of trees. It can be nothing, when the weather not support the growing of the mango fruits. Often they spent a lot of money for spraying and then if there is now rain, all the fruits fall down before getting ripe and they have a deficit.Here is exactly the approach, where we want to change. If they don´t spray, they don´t have the risk of a deficit. If they collect all the broken mango they have the potential to earn much more. the people will take much more care of the trees and the environment. And not only about the Mango. It is the point, where we can reach the heart to change a mindset.For nearly all of the farmers the mango is just an additional income, when it comes. But it can be much more. We want to show this and share this to all the visitors. - Market
Before only the perfect picked Mango were getting sold at the local market and some of them then also went to Medan. The farmer get around 5000 Rupiah per kilo. Now with our products, we are already prepared to sell our products out of the Mango to all Indonesia. Also we can export the products. And we are sure with help of the Administration of the new young Bupati Vandiko Gultom we will get a structure of licensing the procucts for all the Mango Farmers of lake Toba. With the UMKM we are working on it. Also the Kemenparegraf with Minister Sandiaga Uno will support this. We already have had 3 talks with him and also with the BOPDT we are working on it.We want to use the Mangga Toba as a door opener for a system of an easy licensing for all the farm products. In the next month we are building a warehouse and a workshop in Silimalombu as a development center for UMKM for Samosir. - Criteria of Mango
We don´t make a competition of the fruits. We want, that the resources of all the Mango getting used. Even a broken one can be wonderful to make Mango Wine. Or to make seeds out of it. The resources are just getting to used. We want to give the highlight on the products, they can be done out of the Mango. On the floating market you will get a lot of ideas, what can be done with the Mango. - Jugdegemt
We give each Visitor, when he arrived a Questionary Card, where he can give a review of all the Mango Products he tried. When he leave, he give us back this card with his phonenumber. Out of this, we can then find out, which is the product number one. This will be awarded. We are working in the moment on an oline Questionary. But we are not sure, if this is getting ready as an app for download..’ - How the Government support the Mango Farmers?
In the moment with the development of Lake Toba, we have the full support of the Ministery and also of the Government of Samosir in a promoting way. But there are no subsidiaries for the farmers. The most important is that the Government support the structures for Entrepreneurship. And here we feel the support now. There are much less regulations and the Ministery and the local Government and the BOPDT want to help all the farmers by this. It is clear for all that the slogan “Indonesia Maju” is getting reality. There we work hand in hand with the UMKM, the farmers, the customers and the government structures.