SERBALAWAN, Indonesia -- For mile after mile in northern Sumatra, a highway snakes along seemingly endless rows of neatly tended rubber trees, each with a little spout dripping gooey white latex into a plastic cup.
The Dutch, British and American rubber barons who tamed the Sumatran jungle -- and grew fabulously wealthy in the process -- have given way to a new breed of plantation bosses who rely on modern, high-yield clones and chemical fertilizers to compete in an increasingly competitive international market.
Cultivation of the trees and the processing of raw rubber into a wide range of products, from radial tires to disposable diapers, have changed dramatically since the trees were first transplanted from Brazil to Sumatra in 1876.
But the labor-intensive method of carving grooves into the bark to extract liquid rubber has hardly changed at all.
'We haven't figured out how to mechanize tree tapping yet,' said Colorado-born Ray Fassnacht. 'Essentially the job is done the same way now as it was 30 or 40 years ago.'
Fassnacht, 59, vice president and managing director of the Goodyear rubber plantations in Sumatra, oversees the work of more than 7,000 Indonesian workers on the company's 44,460-acre plantation.
His sprawling, colonial-style house, surrounded by acres of manicured parkland and a private golf course, is reminiscent of the lifestyle enjoyed by the wealthy foreign entrepreneurs who held sway in Indonesia before independence in 1946.
But the relationship between expatriate manager and local labor has evolved to the point where the Sumatran rubber industry is almost completely 'Indonesianized.'
'There are only five expats working on the plantation now,' Fassnacht said. 'There is constant pressure to Indonesianize. We can understand how they feel. But we want to stay here. We've been through some tough times.'
Fassnacht began working on the plantation in 1957 when much of Sumatra was not only uncultivated but unexplored.
Under the rule of President Sukarno in the early 1960s, he said, the plantation was paralyzed by a series of costly strikes. Ninety-five percent of its workers were members of the Communist Party of Indonesia, the PKI.
Following the abortive communist coup in 1965, Fassnacht was told by Indonesian military intelligence officers that he was on a 'hit list' of people to be killed by the PKI.
'You never saw anything like it,' Fassnacht said. 'It was chaotic. But the workers weren't really communists. True Moslems can't be communists.'
Minimum wages are set by the Indonesian government. Laborers make a dollar a day, while experienced tree tappers earn about $2.
'That might not sound like much but it is far better than the surrounding area,' Fassnacht said. 'At least they have work and the benefits provided by the company.'
He said the company is responsible for the maintenance of dozens of mosques, four churches, 4,800 housing units and the health care of 25,000 people living on the plantation.
The annual output of the plantation, which Goodyear took over in 1917, is more than 20,000 tons of rubber, roughly equal to that of the rival American company Uniroyal, which runs a neighboring plantation.
According to Harry Tanugraha, chairman of the Indonesian Rubber Traders Association, Indonesia's rubber production was 1.1 million tons in 1984 and is expected to reach 1.2 million tons this year, making it the second biggest rubber producer in the world after Malaysia.
He said about 95 percent of Indonesia's rubber is exported, most of it to the United States.
'I think in the next 10 years we have a good chance of becoming the number one producer in the world,' Tanagraha said. 'In Malaysia, labor is too expensive. There is leaf blight in South America, security problems in Thailand and all kinds of problems in Africa.'
Although competition from plastic producers have contributed to a 60 percent decline in rubber prices since the boom days of the 1950s, Tanagraha is optimistic about the industry's future.
'Plastic is based on oil and oil is not a renewable resource,' he said. 'Rubber is renewable and when there is an oil shortage it will help us.'
Fassnacht said the life of a rubber planter, although not lacking in luxuries, has some inevitable drawbacks.
'Some of the expats posted out here have tended to become a little screwy because of the isolation,' he said. 'A few had to be taken out in strait jackets.'
But Fassnacht and his wife said they enjoy living in Sumatra.
'Our family were pioneers in Colorado,' he said. 'The family has been moving west so long that now we're in the East.'
