The image shows the area near Bangun Purba, a village some thirty kilometres south of Medan. Sumatra’s natural advantages, including climate and soil, proved to be ideal for growing crops such as coffee and rubber, aside from tobacco and oil palms. During the colonial times, there were coffee and rubber plantations in this region, even though much before the Dutch took to commercialising those crops, the locals, including the Batak, had already grown and traded coffee. However, it was the commercialisation of these crops that eventually led to Sumatra becoming the most profitable and prosperous colony of the Dutch East Indies.
