**1. Introduction**

The province of East Nusa Tenggara (hereinafter referred to as NTT) has been in the top three poorest provinces in Indonesia (Beneditus Dalupe 2020; Wiryanta 2007). The livelihoods of the people of NTT still depend on natural resources, 48,7% obtained from agriculture, forestry, and fisheries, while 34% from the service sector. Likewise, on Timor Island, 40.35% of the people depend on natural resources for their livelihoods in agriculture, forestry, and fisheries (BPS Provinsi NTT 2021). However, NTT has creative economic potential through the culture-based tourism industry. With the increasing importance of

**Citation:** Agustarini, Retno, Yetti Heryati, Yelin Adalina, Wahyu Catur Adinugroho, Dhany Yuniati, Rizki Ary Fambayun, Gerhard Eli Sabastian, Asep Hidayat, Hesti Lestari Tata, William Ingram, and et al.. 2022. The Development of *Indigofera* spp. as a Source of Natural Dyes to Increase Community Incomes on Timor Island, Indonesia. *Economies* 10: 49. https://doi.org/ 10.3390/economies10020049

Academic Editors: Monika Roman, Michał Roman and Ralf Fendel

Received: 18 December 2021 Accepted: 10 February 2022 Published: 15 February 2022

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**Copyright:** © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in various situations, tourism can play an important role in achieving goal number 8 of the 17 SDGs (UNWTO and UNDP 2017; Dahles et al. 2020; Scheyvens and Hughes 2019; Westoby et al. 2021).

Tourism, if implemented sustainably, seeks to balance the three pillars, namely economy, society, and the environment (Saarinen 2018; Sharpley 2020; Westoby et al. 2021). Although not always evenly distributed, tourism can increase income for many local people (Nugroho and Numata 2020). The expansion of cultural tourism towards intangible cultural heritage and contemporary culture has created more attention for the increased integration between tourism and the creative economy (Richards 2018).

The famous cultural product of the NTT community is *ikat* weaving (Amaral and Ikat 2019; Bessie et al. 2021; Dioh 2020; Luik et al. 2021; Wangge 2021), which is a hereditary culture from the ancestors of the NTT people with diverse geometric patterns (Windiyarti 2006; Hartono 2010; Tas'au 2016). The making of *ikat* is considered as a woman's activity; a tradition passed down from mothers to their daughters (Sulaiman and Anita 2020). *Ikat* is family property that has a high value as a symbol of social, religious, cultural, and economic status (Elvida 2015; Wangge 2021).

*Ikat* reflects the identity of the different ethnic groups in NTT, with each group having a different style (Susilawati 2010), such as representations of animals (Sumba Island), leaves (Rote Island), silk and embroidery weaving (Timor Island), and warp *ikat* weaving (Alor Islands) (Salma et al. 2018; Sulayman et al. 2017), also colors that differ widely from those found elsewhere in the archipelago (Dioh 2020) due to the use of natural dyes in its production (Ledoh et al. 2021; Murniati and Takandjandji 2015; Nomleni et al. 2019; Sabuna and Nomleni 2020).

Colored dyes are produced from colored plants (flowers, fruit, seeds, leaves, wood, bark, roots, and other parts), animals (insects that produce red and purple colors), and minerals (metals, metal salts, and oxides, red ocher) (Elsahida et al. 2019). *Indigofera tinctoria* L. is one of the plants used as a black and blue dye for yarn for making *ikat* by the community of NTT (Setiawan and Suwarningdyah 2014).

*Indigofera* species comprise mainly herbs, perennial or annual, shrubs or small-sized trees, distributed in forests, savannas, and disturbed areas (Marquiafável et al. 2009; Gerometta et al. 2020). The lifespan of *Indigofera tinctoria* L. as a dye producer is 2–3 years (Kurniawan 2020; Ariyanti and Asbur 2018), whereas if it only functions as a land cover it is 1.5–2 years (Kurniawan 2020).

The genus *Indigofera*, the third-largest in the family Fabaceae, consists of almost 800 species (Prabhu and Bhute 2015; Schrire 2013). However, tropical and subtropical zones are areas in the world where indigo natural plant dyes are widely found (Su et al. 2008; Prabhu and Bhute 2015). The distribution of this species is in Africa and Madagascar, the Sino-Himalayan region, Australia, and Central and South America (Schrire 2013), and a small portion can be found in temperate areas of East Asia (Ponmari et al. 2014).

Several species in the genus *Indigofera* are known to produce economically valuable indigo dye (Schrire 2013), such as *I. tinctoria* L. and *I. suffruticosa* (Marquiafável et al. 2009). This species is also an important prairie legume (Schrire 2013), with many benefits, such as an ornamental plant, soil cover, shade plant, green humus cover, and erosion control (Marquiafável et al. 2009). They are also used for their medicinal properties (Prakash et al. 2007; Renukadevi and Sultana 2011; Santos et al. 2015; Vieira et al. 2007).

Indigo has been used as a natural textile dye since before synthetic dyes were invented. Indigo extraction from *Indigofera* plants (*I. tinctoria* L.) started in India, Egypt, and China and then spread to other tropical countries, including Indonesia, while indigo in sThuringia (Europe) came from the woad plant (*Isatis tinctoria* L.). Indigo extracted from *I. tinctoria* L. has a better level of color quality than indigo extracted from *Isatis tinctoria* L., so the European textile industry began to import indigo from India and Indonesia (Głowacki et al. 2012). The development of natural dyes fluctuated with the fame of Indigofera in Indonesia, which was recorded in 1918–1925. The highest export value occurred in 1921, reaching 69,777 kg dry weight (Heyne 1987).

Natural indigo dye is slowly being replaced by synthetic indigo, and in 1913, the indigo dye used for textile purposes was derived from synthetic indigo (Séquin-Prey 1981; Głowacki et al. 2012). At present, an increasingly large proportion of weavers use synthetic blue dyes, as these dyes are relatively low cost, durable, and readily available, thus resulting in increased efficiency in the manufacturing process (Haji 2010; Indraningsih and Darsih 2013). The use of natural dyes is generally considered less practical, given that the quality of the product is uneven and that the dyes cannot be stored for long periods of time (Samadara 2018). Along with increasing public awareness of the dangers posed by using synthetic dyes, people are returning to using natural dyes that are more environmentally friendly (Angelini et al. 1997; Muzzazinah 2019).

In Indonesia, indigo paste production fluctuates from year to year. Thus far, domestic needs of indigo paste have not been optimally met because there is no industry specifically producing it. Furthermore, the production of indigo paste has only been supplied by household-scale producers in which the raw materials rely on wild or uncultivated plants (Kurniawan 2020).

While 18 species of *Indigofera* spp. are found throughout Indonesia, only six species can be used to produce natural dyes (Muzzazinah 2016). Several of these species, including *I. suffruticosa* Mill. and *I. tinctoria* L., are distributed across the Island of Timor in NTT (Agustarini et al. 2021). The morphology of Indigofera, which grows in the NTT region with its dry area, produces different colors than the same type that grows in Java and Madura (Muzzazinah et al. 2018).

The climate and land of NTT are dry, and most land is not very fertile. The grassland is mainly suitable for animal husbandry and dryland farming (Kwong and Ronnås 2011). This contributes to low economic growth and a limited role in adding gross value (Saragih 2007). The agricultural activities in NTT need to be more market-focused agribusiness. Based on the market potency of indigo as natural dyes, *I. tinctoria* L. and *I. suffruticosa* as agricultural commodities could be developed to support cultural tourism.

This paper shows the result of a series of activities conducted on Timor Island on (i) the evaluation of the use of natural dyes on Timor Island; (ii) the identification of best practice cultivation techniques for *Indigofera* spp.; (iii) socializing the leaf-processing technologies that enable the production of indigo paste for use as dyes; (iv) land suitability analysis for the cultivation of *Indigofera* spp.; and (v) economic analysis to determine the viability of the cultivation and utilization of *Indigofera* spp. as a raw material for the production of natural dye. It is hoped that this study will enable the identification of optimal strategies for the development of *Indigofera* spp. to produce natural dyes on a wide scale and thereby facilitate the achievement of targets established under SDG 8.
