T

he administration office of Pamekasan regency is looking to produce essential oils from tobacco cloves in a bid to reduce tobacco farmers’ dependence on the cigarette industry.

According to Bambang Edy Suprapto, the head of the Industry and Trade Agency, tobacco production in Pamekasan reached 40,000 tons on average annually, higher than the amount produced by Probolinggo and Bojonegoro, East Java’s other two tobacco producing regencies.

“Madura is known for its quality tobacco in Indonesia,” he told The Jakarta Post in a recent interview.

However, the production has experienced a drop by 50 percent due to a high amount of rainfall.

The drop in production has brought a loss to the farmers. Excessive rains have affected the quality of tobacco with cigarette factories’ refusing to take them.

The province is home to a number of big cigarette factories, which get their supply of tobacco from Pemekasan. Among them are PT Gudang Garam, and Sampoerna.

Essential-oils production is expected to offset the farmers’ losses and reduce the farmers’ dependency on the cigarette industry in marketing their crop.

“We have been conducting research on essential oils distilled from tobacco cloves and it yields good quality oils. We are currently studying further the economic gains of developing this extensively,” Bambang said.

Essential oils, which are also known as volatile oils, ethereal oils or aetherolea, are used in perfumes, cosmetics, soaps, and pharmacy.

Mohammad Sholeh, a tobacco farmer in Pamekasan, welcomes the plan to diversify tobacco into essential oils.

“By selling tobacco outside of the cigarette industry we hope we can reduce our dependence on the tobacco market, which has disadvantaged farmers,” he said.

He acknowledged a loss in the last few years because he had to sell his crop to middlemen with prices far below the market tag.