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une has always been a rosy month for clove farmers in Buleleng regency, Bali’s most prolific clove-producing region, but this year farmers face a possible harvest failure due to extreme weather last year.

Gede Kendaliawan, one of hundreds of clove farmers in Kayuputih village, pointed out his fruitless clove plants on his one-hectare plantation.

“Last year, we had a very long wet season with heavy rains through almost 12 months. The flowers fell off before bearing fruit. I know I will not get as much this harvest as I used to,” he said.

Gede and thousands of other farmers were looking forward to selling their harvest as the price of clove has increased three-fold from Rp 50,000 (US$5.81) per kilogram to Rp 150,000 per kilogram.

Gede is not alone. In Bali, there are an estimated 45,000 farmers who grow cloves, most of them in Buleleng. Other clove-producing regencies are Tabanan, Jembrana, Gianyar and Klungkung. Most of the clove is shipped to Surabaya, Jakarta and other cities in Indonesia.

Clove farmers are, for a brief moment, Bali’s newly rich when harvest season comes around. They receive hundreds of millions of rupiah from each harvest, enough to buy new houses, cars and land.

Ni Nyoman Ceni, who manages clove plantations in Kubutambahan village, said she used the money to pay for her two sons’ university education in Java. “I also store tons of cloves from previous harvests for reserves. I will sell it when I need cash,” she said.

This season, she is not expecting a good yield. “We expect a good harvest but nature says otherwise,” Ceni said.

Nyoman Suarta, the head of the Bali Agriculture Agency’s crop and plantation office, said most clove farmers would experience poor harvests this year.

“Clove production dropped more than 80 percent from the same period last year,” Suarta said.

The agency said total clove production last year reached 1,418 tons.

Suarta said clove plants were very sensitive to changing weather conditions. “The trees are very sensitive to heavy rain and strong winds,” he said, adding that weather was the most important factor in determining yields.

A poor harvest will have a deep impact on the lives of local farmers.

Gede said he was expecting to bring in only 200 kilograms of cloves this year, compared to 2,500 kilograms last year.

“During the harvest season, we hire dozens of temporary workers to pick cloves from tall clove trees. Workers are paid a daily rate of between Rp 50,000 and Rp 60,000 each. The harvest usually takes eight to two weeks depending on the yield,” he said.

Prospects may be bleaker given that many farmers have already sold the cloves to middlemen prior to the harvest season.

“If we don’t have money, we often borrow from middlemen. They value our yield at below market prices, but we have to accept it as we need the money,” a farmer said.

Middleman, he said, paid Rp 4 million for the harvest from a one-hectare clove plantation.