New income: The mangosteen wine-making home industry in Patang, Badung, creates home-based employment for local women.

Prosperity is a far greater notion than the size of a bank balance, says Hendri Hartopo, a finance whizz turned mangosteen wine producer.

Until the penny dropped, Jakarta born Hendri spent much of his working life training people in the art of the economic bottom line.

“I was a public speaker specializing in finance, then one day I realized — what is the benefit of retirement plans and wealth without health,” he explained.

Five years ago, he began to grow organic vegetables in his Jakarta garden. These days he can be found in the hamlet of Patang in Petang district in the northern area of Badung, in Bali, helping mangosteen farmers gain added value from their crops through a community business venture involving fermented fruit wine.

Located on forested lower slopes of the central mountains, Patang is one of the province’s five mangosteen producing regions. A group of mangosteen farmers from Patang took to making fermented fruit wine from their harvest and now host a festival aimed at introducing the fruit to wider audience.

The community saw the need to change how they sold their produce when bumper harvests returned almost nothing to farmers, explained Mangosteen festival head and farmer Made Sukanda.

“During a great harvest, mangosteen prices can drop to just US$0.15 per kilogram. We believe our yield is the fruit of the gods, yet prices are like that,” Sukanda said, during the first day of Patang’s second annual Mangosteen Festival.

Frustrated by the collapse of mangosteen prices, Sukanda turned to the Bali government’s agricultural department for help.

“I complained to the agricultural department and they called Hendri Hartopo for consultation. This was a huge help. From five kilos of mangosteen, that would oft fetch little more than $0.85 cents in the market, we can make fermented fruit wine for a return of $150 dollars,” he said.

Hendri and the Patang farmer collective spent two years testing the fermentation process through trial and error experimentation involving probiotics or live bacteria and yeast. Hartopo, at home in Jakarta home, had tried to make wine from a range of fruits, including bananas, before he stumbled across information regarding the health benefit of mangosteens.

“I was learning about probiotics and I knew wine was a probiotic, so I tried making wine from bananas and other fruits. Then I read about mangosteens,” said Hendri regarding his search for the ideal fruit wine ingredient.

Ready to serve: Financial consultant-turned-organic producer Hendri Hartopo (left) and mangosteen farmer Made Sukanda (right) pose with gallons of mangosteen wine.

Aside from experimenting with fruit, Hendri also tried to identify the main illness people tended to suffer from, exploring illnesses such as high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer and stomach problems.

Mangosteen skin is thought to have high antioxidant levels and the fruit is readily available.

“Mangosteen is a native fruit and it boasts the highest antioxidant levels of all Indonesian fruits, so I made mangosteen the locomotive to introduce probiotic wine,” says Hendri, further adding that the fruit had long been used as a traditional remedy.

At the Patang Mangosteen Festival, water gallon containers filled with the mangosteen wine, crafted by local women and left to ferment for approximately 12 months, are presented labeled with a production date and the name of the maker. In this way, festival visitors discover their favorite wine maker. Soon they will be able to buy the drink in supermarkets and hotels.

The village of Patang are in the process of applying for a license as a mangosteen wine producer with the Food and Drug Monitoring Agency (BPOM). Made Sukanda and his community believe when that license is granted the days of wasted bumper crops will be a problem of the past.

“Once we have our license, we plan to sell our products, such as the wine, to hotels and supermarkets. As a community of farmers, we hope our customers will gain health benefits from our products and that our economic situation will improve,” said Sukanda.

Stabilizing farmer income will change the community forever.

Jewel of Patang: A visitor and his child pose during the recent Mangosteen Festival in Patang, Badung. The annual festival helps promote mangosteen as a prime product of the hamlet.

 “Locals will no longer worry about fruit price fluctuation during harvest season, because they can make a product that is long lasting, rather than produce a commodity that rapidly goes off,” he said, emphasizing that the community will gain confidence and be able to participate in the Bali’s tourism industry.

“Bringing together health and wealth in a community equals true prosperity,” he said.

— Photos by JB Djwan