While most rural women in Indonesia help their spouses working as farmers besides doing their household chores, housewives in an East Java village take care of dairy cows and deliver milk to the village cooperative.

Sulasmi Arifin, 28, a mother of two, is one of the housewives who raise dairy cattle in Bremi village, Krucil district, Probolinggo regency, East Java. She wakes up at chilly dawn to wash her two cows and one calf, also hosing down the floor of their shed. The routine is repeated in the afternoon before the cows are milked.

'€œWashing and feeding dairy cows, cleaning their shed, milking them and taking their milk to the village cooperative'€™s collection post are my job, alongside my housework,'€ said the wife of Muhammad Syamsul Arifin, a ranger and staffer of the Argopuro Hyang Barat Mountain Natural Resources Conservation Center (BKSDA) assigned to Bremi.

'€œI help my husband look after milch cows to ensure they produce plenty of milk. He collects fodder for the cattle. But sometimes he'€™s engaged in the Argopuro center'€™s plantation work and other activities. If I didn'€™t look after the cattle, the quality of milk produced would be inferior,'€ Sulasmi added.

Bremi is a cool village on the slopes of Mount Argopuro, where the dairy business supports the local economy. It'€™s one of East Java'€™s top milk producers, with dairy cattle breeders in the majority. Bremi residents milk their cows in the morning and afternoon to suit the cooperative'€™s collection at 5:30-6:30 a.m. and 3:30'€“4:30 p.m.

Milch cows efficiently change their feed, such as hay and concentrates, into highly nutritious milk. '€œIn the dry season, when people find it hard to get fodder, the Argopuro Krucil village cooperative produces cattle feed to boost milk productivity, thus relieving the burden on breeders,'€ said Arifin.

'€œBremi'€™s milk production is still marketed only to the milk-processing industry. Large manufacturers of milk products absorb the greater part, or 95 percent of local output, while the remaining 5 percent is sold in neighboring villagers,'€ noted Arifin.

The women in Bremi diligently play an important role in the village'€™s milk business, consistently following the instructions they have received. One of the strategies of rural economic promotion is the utilization of house yards as a source of household income.

'€œI follow the technique of milking cows I was taught by village instructors. The milk obtained first must be discarded, as it contains bacteria. Milking should be done by squeezing instead of pulling. Then the teats are cleaned, and the cows are fed to allow their teats to close. The cows should also be dry to prevent water from entering the milk,'€ Sulasmi said, smiling.

Dec. 22 is celebrated as the nation'€™s Mother'€™s Day. Sulasmi and her peers in Bremi may not be joining the commemoration of this auspicious day, but they have demonstrated their successful struggle for independence by keeping the village economy ticking over.

The celebration is different in significance from the global Mother'€™s Day marked on May 11. For Indonesia, it'€™s a historical milestone of women'€™s struggle for national independence, whereas the world Mother'€™s Day is more an expression of love to honor motherhood, when mothers are often freed from domestic work.

Therefore, a visit to Probolinggo would not be complete without a tour of Bremi village, with its cool environment, natural harmony and educational tourism of dairy cow breeding as a lucrative business earning local people their prized commodity.

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