Salt That Sees No Season

KOMPAS/ADI SUCIPTO

Arifin Jamian Maun

Arifin Jamian Maun, 56, has proven that rain is not an obstacle to producing salt. In fact, if he is able to harvest salt every day. He can also get the quality he wants whether for industry or domestic consumption.

How does Arifin produce salt? The resident of Sedayulawas, Brondong district, Lamongan regency, East Java, uses the salt processing inside a layered prism house, which he has developed since 2014. He calls the method verticulture.

The method Arifin employs is a modification of the green house, which speeds up the evaporation of seawater into salt crystals. The salt prism house is covered with special geo-membrane plastic designed to catch hot air maximally to speed up crystallization.

The prism house can also protect the matured seawater from heavy rain and eliminate dirt or ash from sticking to salt crystals. As the matured seawater gains protection, salt production can be carried out nearly every season, including the rainy season, enabling the increased production of salt.

Traditional salt production only always salt to be produced during the three to four month dry season.

Arifin explained that in January-March, when rainfall was high, he could produce 20 tons of salt. In April-July, he was able to produce 15 tons and starting in August, he will be able to produce 20 tons from a 1-hectare salt farm. The salt is also of better quality.

Under conventional methods, about 80 tons of salt can be produced during the dry season. The farmers have to race against the rain. Anytime there is light rain, the farmers are forced to harvest immature seawater. Otherwise, it will melt and causes losses. That means production will drop.

The prism salt house that Arifin created looks like a pyramid. The shape, Arifin said, technically can hold more heat. Currently, he has 10 prism houses measuring 7 by 7 square-meters each. In total, his prism houses are 4,900- sq m. Each prism house costs Rp 5 million to develop. On a 1-hectare salt farm, people can build more than 10 prism houses, depending on the farmers.

He claimed his prism house could produce 1 kilogram of salt per sq m. With a one 1-hectare farm comprising prism houses, salt production could reach 10 tons per day. In a year, salt production can top 360 tons from 1-hectare of prism houses. If the prism houses are expanded to 10,000 hectares, salt production could reach around 3.65 million tons.

That figure has surpassed the salt production target of the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry in 2016 of 3.6 million tons from 25,830 hectares of salt farms in 44 regencies/cities in Indonesia. Salt production target in 2018 is 4.1 million tons.

Arifin believes the national salt production target can be achieved if all salt farmers adopt the prism system. “Indonesia will not lack of salt and need not to import. Yet, it needs support from all sides including access to funding,” Arifin said.

Arifin acknowledged he got support from geo-membrane plastic producer PT Kencana Tiara Gemilang (KTG). Along with Brawijaya University Fishery and Maritime Faculty and Maritime and Coastal Area Study Center, KTG has since 2016 examined the salt production using prism houses. They hope such method could be improved.

KOMPAS/ADI SUCIPTO

Arifin Jamian Maun

Keep trying

The salt farmer from Lamongan keeps trying various techniques to improve salt product by using prism house. He once used mica as a material to cover the prism house. But a few months it got damaged. He kept trying to find better material and finally got the geo-membrane. He then tried the geo-membrane method without the prism house with thread filter technology. Using this method, he can produce 120-150 tons of salt, higher than the salt production using the traditional system that produces 80-100 tons of salt in three dry months. “I have tried all models,” he said.

At last, he developed the layered prism house with geo-membrane cover. So far the result is very good. Salt production can be improved three to four times from the production using traditional method or 400 tons per year. “With this method, salt production can be made regardless of the season,” he said.

Now he tries to encourage salt farmers in Brondong, Lamongan, to switch from traditional method to the prism house method. This day, there is 191 hectare of salt farms managed by 23 farmer groups. They are spread in the villages of Sedayulawas, Brengkok, Sidomukti, Lohgung and Labuhan. Nevertheless, farmers see the cost to develop prism house is still high. Arifin said trying to convince the farmers that the prism house method is far cheaper because it can be used five to eight years with better result compared to the traditional method.

Teacher

Before working on salt production, Arifin worked as a teacher and the head of a hamlet. He also actively preached at Friday prayer at mosques and wrote religious books. In 2011, there was salt business expansion program. The Arifin got interested in the program. Then, he started to produce salt using the traditional method just like other farmers did. But the result was not satisfying.

He then tried using the tarpaulin without cover for two years starting in 2011. The result was not satisfying.  Finally, he tried the prism house model in 2014. He developed the method in 2018 to become layered prism houses. The result was good. He tried to develop industrial salt.

Today, Arifin is totally in love with salt. In fact, many university students often visit his salt farm for research. He also was often invited to speak at events on how to manage salt such as in Cirebon, Rembang, Probolinggo, Pasuruan, Surabaya, Gresik, Bogor and Jakarta. He was also involved in researches on salt by, among others, Udayana University, Hangtuah University, Trunojoyo University, Bandung Institute of Technology, Bogor Institute of Agriculture and Brawijaya University in Malang.

He shared his knowledge with pleasure. He wanted more farmers to implement the salt prism house. Thus, they can produce salt during dry and wet season.

KOMPAS/ADI SUCIPTO

Arifin Jamian Maun

Born: Lamongan, Feb. 2, 1962

Wife: Nur Cahyani

Children: Jihaduddin Rifki Al Hanif, Zazilatul Hikmiyah, Novandi Zahidah Islam, Johan Imamul Bilad, Rulli Dian Izarul Haq

Education: MI Muhamadiyah Sedayulawas; MTs Muhammadiyah Brondong; SMA Muhammadiyah Kertosono, Nganjuk di Ponpes Roudlotul Ilmiyah Kertosono; IAIN Sunan Ampel Surabaya through 8^th semester, not graduated

Job: Salt farmer

Awards: Technology Application, New Innovation on Salt Business from PT Telkom 2017; Energy Sector Innovation, the Use of Solar Energy for Salt Production Using Prism House from Lamongan Regent in 2017