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Lombok tobacco farmers shift to coal kilns
Tobacco farmers in East Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara, have turned to coal as a substitute for kerosene for drying their crops, in a bid to cut costs
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Tobacco farmers in East Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara, have turned to coal as a substitute for kerosene for drying their crops, in a bid to cut costs.
"The drying process takes two days and a lot of money is needed for fuel. However, I use coal, which is cheaper than kerosene," Mursan, 30, a tobacco farmer and owner of a tobacco kiln, told The Jakarta Post.
He said a kerosene-fired kiln required at least 4.5 tons of kerosene to dry nine tons of tobacco, while a coal-fired kiln needed only 600 kilograms of fuel for the same output.
"It's more economical because to produce the same volume and quality of tobacco, we spend only Rp 600,000 on coal, while with kerosene we have to spend Rp 2 million," he said.
Mursan added he had shifted to using coal because of the scarcity of kerosene and a government-prescribed quota on its purchase. He said he could buy up to 12 tons of the fuel last year, but was only allowed six tons this year.
However, the shift from kerosene to coal is not without its drawbacks, with producers having to spend up to Rp 10 million (US$1,100) on upgrading each kiln.
"Currently, we get our coal from cigarette company warehouses, but we hope to have a steady supply in place soon," he said.
Mursan produces about four tons of dried Virginia tobacco from his three-hectare farm in Jerowaru, East Lombok, and employs 60 farmhands. Good quality tobacco retails for up to Rp 25,000 per kilogram.
The harvest period for tobacco in Lombok starts at the end of July and runs until early October. But as in previous years, scant kerosene supplies for drying the tobacco are threatening the livelihoods of local farmers.
Kilns are a vital tool for tobacco farmers in Lombok because the 15 cigarette producers in the area only buy dried tobacco.
Some 23,000 tobacco farmers in West Nusa Tenggara share a total of 13,509 kilns, the provincial branch of the Indonesian Tobacco Farmers Association (APTI) said.
APTI head Lalu Hatman said 45 million liters of kerosene were required each year to run all the kilns. However, supplies from the state-owned oil company Pertamina amounted to only 27 million liters this year.
"Currently, there are only about 1,600 coal-fired kilns," Lalu said.
He added the government-sponsored conversion program still faced many obstacles, including funding for new coal-fired kilns and training farmers on how to use them.
Sumardji, a member of a local alternative fuel working group, said the government would no longer have to spend a lot of money on fuel subsidies if all the kilns were upgraded.
"The price of unsubsidized coal is much lower than subsidized kerosene," he said.
"This could also cut down farmers' production costs. However, farmers would still be burdened by the cost of upgrading to a coal-fired kiln."
Studies show each kiln requires an average 4,500 liters of kerosene per harvest season, or Rp 12.6 million at a subsidized price of Rp 2,600 per liter of kerosene. But a coal-fired kiln would use 11.25 tons of coal at Rp 950 per kilogram, or about Rp 10.68 million.
Production of Virginia tobacco in Lombok is a lucrative industry, with 22,000 hectares of farmland, mostly in East Lombok, dedicated to the crop. The provincial agricultural office estimates the total production to be 45,000 tons -- about 75 percent of the total national tobacco demand. Some 154,000 people are employed in the industry each year during planting and harvest season.
