ANTARA News - Tuesday, 31 January 2012 13:02 WIB

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - A 12kg volume elpiji gas cylinder placed at the corner of Eti Rohaeti's kitchen. "I just leave it there, as a memory from our hard times," said Eti (32), throwing a smile with a little glance to her husband, Hendra (35).

According to the society of Areng parish, Cibodas Lembang village, Bandung regency, the "hard times" was when every single time they ran out of elpiji gas, they faced difficulties in getting refills for not every shop or stall provide elpiji gas.
They often had to go to subdistrict town, about thirty minutes away by motorcycle. "We could not cook if we ran out of gas at afternoon or dawn," said Eti.

Those hard times now left as memories for the couple with three children. They are running days with their own energy source for stove and lightings. The most fascinating fact is that the energy source is out of expenses.
Hendra and Eti have been using biogas within the last couple of months, with energy produced by their three cows' dung.
The milk cow farmer couple had first built a 6 meters square relocation basin – or called as digester – at the back of their house.
"I feel no difference from using elpiji gas," said Eti, "The flames are both blue."

A neighbor of theirs who also use biogas, Pepen Supendi (34), even gets another advantage; compost produced by biogas which is called as bioslurry. Pepen has six milk cows and an almost one hectare sized plantation where he plants tomato and chili.
"The compost has good quality, the harvest increases until 40 percent," said Pepen who plant 6 tons of tomatoes once in every ninety days.
Socializing cow dung biogas to cow farmers in Lembang was not a hard case. Pepen declared how he was interested at once as biogas first initiated by their head of farmers group.
"I never heard anyone refuses biogas for explosion or disgusted reason. Well it is the gas that goes into the house, not dung," said Pepen.

There have been 368 farmers using biogas since the programme first initiated in Lembang on July 2010 - and the number keep on going. The biogas users are partly from North Bandung Milk-cow Farmers Cooperative (KPBSU) with about 7,000 members.
The cooperative works with Rabobank Foundation to supply credits for biogas installation. The price depends on digester's size, but the 6 meters square digester costs IDR 6.6 millions are mostly used.
The milk cow farmers pay IDR 70 thousands per week in installment, cut from the milk they remit on mornings and afternoons. Hendra who owns three cows send 25 liters of milk each day to the cooperative rated IDR 3,200 per liter.
"When the credit has all been paid, I shall ever have the gas in the kitchen for free," Hendra acclaimed.

The Space
There is more than enough dung to be used as raw materials for biogas, but only a few of milk-cow farmers use the technology in Lembang.
"The space becomes a constraint for farmers have to own space to install biogas. Some of them have only own stalls so they can hardly use biogas although they have special interest on it," said Hamdan Sobahi from KPSBU.
The space needed depends on the digester's size. Some farmers built digesters in 6 meters square. Apart from the digester, there is still an open space needed for cow dung inlet and biogas waste relocation.

Biodigester installment cannot be done by anyone except by those certificated by Domestic Biogas (Biru) Programme run by the Humanity Institute for Development Partnership (Hivos).
Hivos, supported by The Netherlands partnership organization, has established biogas programme on 2009 in Indonesia and it is ongoing until the end of 2012. Their target is to have 8,000 biogas units installed in seven provinces especially in milk cow farm areas; 1,000 among them are in Lembang, Bandung regency.
The non-profit organization subsidizes IDR 2 millions for every biogas installment. In Lembang, the farmers subsidized also receive credits by Rabobank Foundation worth 8% per year to build installations as for fixed dome type digester that planted underground.

According to Hamdan, there is not a single farmer in arrears. "There are 25 cooperative members who want to credit biogas but they have to be refused for by a survey they are known that they have not enough space. The other 20 withdraw for their worries on not capable to pay the installments," he said.
The cooperative Hamdan handles then proposed installment decreases from IDR 150 thousands to IDR 100 thousands per month.
When asked for a statement, the Rabobank Foundation Project Manager, Bern Dwiyantom who was visiting KPSBU proclaimed, "We basically agree and it may be done by this February."
His side has also given similar defrayal for biogas to milk cow farmers in Pangalengan, Bandung Regency, Tandangsari Sumedang and South Garut worth IDR 12 billions.

Low Price
The farmers face no obstruction in accepting biogas technology, moreover for subsidy and expenses priority provided.
The hardest obstruction in socializing biogas widely is the low price of milk that cause only small number of people interested in being milk cow farmers.
"Milk price has indeed not been appealing," said Hamdan. As far as he could remember, one liter of milk could worth two liters of rice. "We cannot get half of liter of rice by one liter of milk nowadays," he said.
He was wondering how beef price keep on arise while cow milk price remains still in average.

Hamdan also stated the approximately 7,000 permanent members of KPSBU. "There have always been new members but some of them stopped being farmers and chosen other business, sold their cows and bought motorcycles for ojek (motorcycles as public transportation service) for instance," he further said.
He acclaimed how milk price in Indonesian is the lowest even in ASEAN. He put Malaysia as an example for its IDR 5,200 price per liter of milk.
In his opinion, the low milk price hardened farmers to build their business.

By the year 2011 data from the Ministry of Agriculture, it is known that milk consumption level in Indonesia is only staged at 11,09 liters per capita per year while Malaysia and Philippines reached 22,1 per capita per year. Thailand was on 33,7 liters per capita per year, Vietnam for 12,1 liters per capita per year and India reached 42,08 per capita per year.
According to the data, national supply of milk could only complete 30 percents of needs while the rest was imported.
The National Dairy Council (DPN) has just asked the government to reevaluate minimum line of dairy price among farmers for the price in international market has reached more than IDR 4,000 per liter.
Hamdan wishes for the government to assist farmers and help them for being eager in continuing their business.

"Picture this; when there are more farmers, more people will use biogas, which means more people have their own energy sources," he said. Hamdan imagines that if milk price among farmers strengthen the business, he was optimist that his 7,000 cooperative members shall have their own biogas units at homes."
(A038)


Editor: Aditia Maruli

Source: www.antaranews.com