A number of farmers, members of the North Bandung Cattle Farmers Cooperatives, deposit their milk in the Bukanegara post in Lembang West Bandung regency, West Java, Sunday (9/7). The cooperative protects and advocates for the farmers.
Cattle farmers in North Bandung, West Java, have been given the right channel to persevere, through the North Bandung Cattle Farmers Cooperative (KPSBU). The various facilities and skills transfers it has provided have made it possible for loyal farmers to turn their cow’s milk into a reliable source of income.
Fresh green paint covers the walls of a house belonging to Barjat Sudrajat, 46, on Wednesday (5/7). With four rooms, the house is the biggest one of all the houses on the narrow alley in Cilember village, Lembang district, West Bandung regency, West Java. Built six months ago, the house replaced an old wooden stilt house.
“This is the result of selling 11 young dairy cattle and their milk,” Barjat said with pride.
Barjat is a dairy cattle farmer who has achieved prosperity slowly. Staring out with virtually nothing, he began to see changes after joining the KPSBU. Starting out in 2000 by raising other farmers’ dairy cows, now, 17 years on, he owns 17 cows. Of these, he sold 11 heads for a house.
“I used to be a mere farm and construction laborer. Dairy cows saved my life. The KPSBU is behind all of this,” he said.
His decision to become a KPSBU member was right. Barjat, who is an elementary school graduate, received a lot of knowledge from the cooperative. He learned about the best kinds of feed, raising calves and quality control for milk with a low bacteria count. KPSBU instructors and health officers were diligent in visiting cowsheds.
“I used to ask a lot of questions, but now I am often invited to discussions. Not only by farmers, but also by university students and farming experts,” said Barjat, who is now the head of the Mitra Barokah Livestock group.
In June 2017, he made the milk earning record of Rp 133 million in his group. The price of milk in June was Rp 4,500-Rp 4,900per liter. “The payment process is completely transparent. This mitigates any suspicion of corruption in financial management,” he said.
Long history
North Bandung has long been known as a center of dairy cattle, even from before the republic was established. In the book Bandung Baheula Jeung Kiwari, Bandoengsche Melk Centrale (Bandung, Past and Present: The Bandoengsche Melk Centrale) by Soedarsono Katam, it is written that the Ursone brothers from Italy started the first dairy farm in the Dutch East Indies, in Lembang in 1985. At first, they began by raising 30 dairy cows and producing 100 bottles of milk per day. The business grew rapidly and around 45 years later, the Ursones had 450 cows.
Eight years after the Ursones, the Boerexodus from South Africa played an important role. Louis Hirscland and Van Zijil, two of 20 Boers who arrived in Bandung, managed for the first time tobring in dairy cows from Friesland, the dairy farming center in the Netherlands.
The pioneer spirit has not dissipated. The Holstein-friesian cattle breed is still a favorite with locals.
The KPSBU is behind that success.
KPSBU secretary Ramdan Sobahi said that around 5,000 dairy farmers had become cooperative members. Every day, the group produces 140 tons of processed milk. According to Ramdan, this is purely down the hard work of the KPSBU members. The farmers’ eagerness to continue to improve the quality and quantity of their milk has allowed the KPSBU to fulfill market demands.
“The enthusiasm of the members is the heart of the cooperative. To maintain their enthusiasm, we continue to work hard to make them loyal,” he said.
That enthusiasm has also given rise to a number of new programs, starting from interest-free loans to free health service for farmers, and to the purchase of cattle concentrates. “The main requirement is that the recipients of the programs have deposited milk regularly every 15 days. Therefore, farmers must be serious about raising their cows if they want those facilities,” he said.
Ramdan’s words are not just empty talk. When he was giving a presentation of KPSBU’s featured programs, Acep Utris, 29, a cattle farmer, came with two of his children to the service table. He wanted to buy the KPSBU’s concentrate feed.
“I need concentrate feed because it so happens I just bought a new cow. The cow was bought using an interest-free loan of Rp 10 million from the cooperative. The loan is repaid in installments through milk deposits,” said Acep, who has four cows.
On hearing this, Ramdan smiled. He explained that the KPSBU would not stop here, and had many plans still to be realized in order to improve its farmers’ welfare.
He went on to show a construction mock-up of Kampung Susu (Dairy Village) in Sagalaherang, Subang regency, around 20 kilometers from Lembang. Built on a 1-hectare plot of land, the initiative for this came from the Dutch government, the Indonesian government, milk producer Frisian Flag and the KPSBU. The Dairy Village will be the site of the national pilot center for dairy cow farms using modern technology. “This is the first in Indonesia,” he said.
