Three hundred mother palms from a coconut grove in Buol
Buol Regency lies on the north shore of Sulawesi, facing the Celebes Sea, and coconut and cloves are its main cash crops.
In the tall coconut groves of Mokupo village, Karamat district, in Buol Regency, researchers observed about 3,000 palms between 2011 and 2013 and picked 300 as mother trees. The result, Buol ST-1, was released by the Ministry of Agriculture in 2013 as a national superior variety, the first semi-tall coconut to be recognised. Its trunk grows slowly and stays short, which makes harvesting safer; it starts bearing at around 40 months, and its copra is about 61 percent oil.
The Festival Pesona Buol is held each year for the regency's anniversary, with song and dance performances, a market and craft stalls. Its tenth edition, in 2023, drew thousands of visitors.
Ambal, Buol's own dish, is made from sago and serra fish cooked on a hearth stove, and because it looks like a pizza, people in Buol often call it Buol pizza.
Coconut and cloves, easy to grow and worth selling, are the main cash crops on Buol farms. Buol is on the northern shore of Sulawesi, facing the Celebes Sea, with Gorontalo province to the east. Roadside stalls sell coconuts opened on the spot: the top is cut away with a machete, the water is drunk first, and the white flesh lining the shell is scooped out after.
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