The Tasteless Life of Salt Farmers

Kompas/Abdullah Fikri Ashri

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The public does not trust the government when it imports commodities such as salt. It is not only because Indonesia has vast potential farming area along the country’s coastal area of about 99,093 square kilometers, but also because salt has traditionally been produced by farmers for years without requiring advanced technology.

Salt has been imported since the 1990s, an ironically bitter choice, as we don’t have many alternatives but to import to meet national demand.

According to data from the Salt Usage Industry of Indonesia (AIPGI), national salt production totaled only 1.44 million tons in 2016. In certain seasons, Indonesia\'s annual production can reach 1.9 million tons. Meanwhile, national annual salt demand is around 4.1 million tons, of which about 780,000 tons are used to meet public consumption, with the rest for industries.

Kompas/Totok Wijayanto

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Lack of incentives

Imports basically reflect the government\'s failure in modernizing the people\'s salt production. For at least 20 years, government policies and programs have not been able to realize self-sufficiency in salt production.

The climatic factors and the traditional ways in the production of the people\'s salt are always blamed as the reasons for the country’s low salt production. The government should therefore formulate an appropriate program to achieve self-sufficiency in salt production.

The Salt Business Empowerment Program (Pugar) began in 2011 through the provision of financial aid to increase production. However, financial aid disbursement reaches only 50 percent. Inaccurate disbursement of the funds to salt farmers has become the source of the problem.

In Sumenep regency, East Java, for example, farmers usually need funds between May and June to finance farming costs, but the money can only reach the farmers in September. As a result, the program can only increase salt production from 55 tons per hectare to 73 tons per ha, bringing minor impact to the farmers’ salt production.

Pugar is also not so attractive in encouraging farmers to expand their salt farming area. Until 2014, salt farming areas covered only about 27,898 ha, or down by about 5 percent from 29,367 ha in 2013. This indicates that salt farming is not so profitable for farmers despite the high demand.

In fact, the number of farmers working on salt farms has also decreased. Data from the People\'s Coalition for Fisheries Justice (Kiara) in 2016 showed that the number of salt farmers fell to 21,050 in 2016 from 30,668 in 2012. It means that at least 8,400 salt farmers have shifted to other professions.

These problems cannot be separated from the low price of the farmers\' salt. The price of premium-grade salt (K1) produced by farmers is around Rp 540 to Rp 550 per kilogram, lower than the government’s reference price of Rp 750 per kg. Farmers, on the other hand, cannot benefit if there is an increase in salt price, because they have weak bargaining power in the face of local salt trade cartels that determine the quality and price unilaterally.

Many argue that the current salt crisis is due to the government\'s inability to provide incentives for salt farmers in the forms of prices and technology that increase salt production at the farmer level. Such incentives could encourage farmers to expand their farming areas and the quality of their salt because they know they could get significant profits from their production.

Kompas/Adi Sucipto

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State responsibility

Producing high-quality salt for industrial users certainly takes months. Of course, this is difficult for farmers because they have many limitations, ranging from the lack of capital, technology, to distribution channels. Moreover, farmers often need cash to meet their needs. Therefore, farmers generally only have a matter of days to produce, resulting in low-quality salt.

Thus, self-sufficiency in salt production is a necessity and is the responsibility of the government to realize. This means that the government needs to invest in strengthening the people\'s salt industry, not just providing limited capital assistance through Pugar.

There are two policies that can be introduced. First, establish a public service agency that specifically finances salt investment needs at the farm level, from land clearing to post-harvest processing, so as to produce salt with high sodium chloride (NaCl), low magnesium and low water content.

Second, organize salt farmers in a cooperative or company as a business entity, considering that producing good quality salt requires large areas of land, large-scale processing facilities as well as technological support and professional business management. That way, the certainty of salt in terms of quantity, quality and continuity can be guaranteed.

Basically, it is not difficult for the government to achieve self-sufficiency in salt production if it really wants to do so. If not, the public will judge the government as being half-hearted in increasing salt production and in improving the welfare of the salt farmers. It seems that imports may bring more benefit to the authorities than to the people.

Suhardi Suryadi, Consultant, the Institute for Democracy Education