"From what I've seen in the plantations, I am pretty sure the harvests are going to be good. I believe I can collect two tonnes of coffee compared with one tonne this year," said Tamsi, 78, an ethnic Javanese farmer who has grown coffee since 1968. Tekad is one of 33 villages in the coffee growing district of Pulau Panggung and lies about 73 km west of the provincial capital of Bandar Lampung. Here, crops such as pepper, bananas and cassava are also grown to supplement the income of more than 12,000 families. Coffee plantations, mostly of robusta variety, cover a total area of 18,866 hectaresin the district.

Farmers say good weather means enough rains as well as sunshine to help grow healthy crops. Traders in Bandar Lampung have also said they expect good harvests next year.

Coffee prices in rupiah terms had skyrocketed when financial crisis hit Indonesia two years ago and the rupiah plunged. Prices hit 16,000 rupiah/kg at the peak of the crisis in 1998, compared with around 2,500 rupiah/kg in 1997.

But prices have come back to earth.

Grade four robusta is quoted at 8,000 rupiah/kg in Bandar Lampung, but farmers are still optimistic.

"Next year's harvests should be better than this year's. I don't really care about the falling prices," said Sutomo, a 33-year-old farmer.

M Mandri, another farmer, said: "I want the rupiah to strengthen... because this will cause other prices to fall as well. Nowadays, what can you buy with 100,000 rupiah?"

Mandri said he shared the optimism of his fellow farmers. "God willing, harvests are going to be good next year."

The Indonesian CoffeeAssociation said promising weather trends were expected to boost production to 480,000 tonnes in the year to September 2000 against 381,000 tonnes in 1998/99. A more stable political and economic climate is also expected to boost coffee consumption in the world's third largest producer to 100,000 tonnes in 1999/00 from up to 80,000 tonnes in 1998/99.

Indonesia's coffee output was flat in 1998/99 due to La Nina, a pattern of cool sea-surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean which causes above-normal rains in several parts of the world.

The provinces of Lampung, South Sumatra and Bengkulu account for nearly 70 percent of the coffee production in Indonesia.

According to the Lampung office of the directorate-general of plantations, the province's robusta output stood at 61,249 tonnes in 1998 against 77,590 tonnes in 1997. There were no estimates for this year's output.

Plantations covered 142,021 hectares in total in 1998 compared with 131,853 hectares in 1997. Despite their confidence about nextyear's harvests, farmers will have to closely watch the heavy rains that fall almost daily in the Pulau Panggung district.p"I think production will fall in the highlands because the coffee grown there will not stand this kind of rain," said Konstiyanto, head of theguidance workshop for the Pulau Panggung farmers run by the directorate-general of plantations.