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ACTNews, JAKARTA – The need for salt in Indonesia in 2021 reaches 4.6
million tons, 84 percent of which is the need for industrial salt, according to
the Indonesian Ministry of Industry Agus Gumiwang Kartasasmita.
To ensure the
availability of salt for industry, import of 3.07 million tons of industrial
salt has been agreed on the condition that only four industries get the shares of
the imported salt: Chlor-alkali plants, miscellaneous food, pharmaceuticals and
cosmetics, and oil drilling.
"Other industries
other than those mentioned above are required to use domestically produced
salt. Imports of industrial salt still have to be done because of several requirements
that cannot be met by locally produced salt," Agus said in a webinar on
Friday (24/9/2021).
Indonesian Ministry
of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries revealed that the total local salt production
in 2020 only reached 1.3 million tons of varying quality against the demand of
4.6 million tons.
"The second
factor [other than the salt production that is incommensurate with the demand]
that is no less important is the quality of the salt. Some industries such as Chlor-alkali plants, pharmaceuticals, and cosmetics, oil drilling, miscellaneous
food require salt that contains high sodium chloride and low metal
contaminants. The third factor is the guaranteed availability. Because the industry
operates throughout the year, it necessitates the continuous supply or raw
materials,” he shared.
Efforts to improve salt quality
INDEF economist
Nailul Huda said it is possible for locally-produced salt to meet the standards
of industrial salt. However, further processing will require more costs, so the
price will be more expensive.
Huda added, the
cause of the low amount and quality of locally-produced salt is the lack of
incentives from the government for salt farmers. "Salt farmers receive no
incentives for producing industrial salt while they still rely on sunlight for
the crystallization," he said.
It takes longer
to produce salt with high content of sodium chloride. However, even if they
spend more time producing salt with higher content of sodium chloride, there
is not much difference in terms of price.
In Rembang, Huda
illustrated, the price of both low and high-grade salt is IDR 15 per kilogram
while the government regulation stipulates that grade 1 salt should be sold at
IDR 750 per kilogram and grade 2 salt at IDR 500 per kilogram. “
Huda gave an
example, the price of salt for good and bad quality was the same in the range
of Rp. 150 per kilogram (kg) in Rembang. In fact, according to the government's
price regulation, quality 1 salt should be worth Rp. 750 per kg and quality 2
to be Rp. 500 per kilogram. "So instead of taking longer to produce grade
1 salt, which will certainly affect production costs, these salt farmers choose
to produce lower-grade salt because the price is the same after all,” he
explained.
ACTNews
interviewed Sunan Aji, a salt farmer in Muarabaru Village, Cilamaya Wetan,
Karawang Regency. Sunan, who produces salt manually, was once offered to sell
his salt to industries. However, the sodium chloride content of his salt is
still low while the charcoal content is high. He suspected it is because of his
manual salt production.
“If you make salt, you should use HDPE geomembrane. I still evaporate the salt manually hence it contains contaminants. If you use HDPE, the salt will be purer,” said Sunan. He hopes to increase the quality of his salt.
Salt Waqf, one
of the products of the productive Seafood Waqf program which is an effort to
absorb the locally-produced salt. (ACTNews)
Global Wakaf-ACT
gives stimulus to Salt Waqf products with local cooperatives to absorb the
production of farmers.
"For the
first step, our target is 50 families of salt waqf producers, and we are
targeting to meet the needs of 400 families with 100 tons of salt," said
Danu Putra Anugrah from the Global Wakaf-ACT.
In the future,
through the Productive Seafood Waqf program, Global Wakaf-ACT also hopes to
support salt farmers. “In this program, we hope that we can provide capital
for salt farmers, and support them with prismatic salt houses and production
tools such as geomembranes. In the end, we also expect to absorb their product.
Of course, these objectives can be reached with the support of all
benefactors," said Danu. []
