The Jakarta Post/Asia News Network
Sunday, Oct 09, 2011
Artisan foods are the next big thing. The Internet abounds
with naturally harvested ingredients classified as artisan products,
harvested and lovingly processed by hand from organic sources. But how
much of this is hype, and how much is possibly exploiting the elderly?
Bali's salt farmers have for hundreds of years sweated blood
harvesting sea salt. The industry, according to these farmers of the
sea, is drawing to a close as their children seek less cruel work with
better pay in cities.
At the same time, Bali's sea salt is springing up on culinary
websites with prices nearing that of precious metals at just under US$5
(S$6.50) per ounce (149 grams) - with silver US$30 per ounce and copper
$3.
On the black sand beaches of Kusamba in east Bali, 63-year-old Ibu
Simprig lifts for the 100th time today 15 kilograms of sand onto her
head and struggles across her sand salt bed farm. At the end of each
trip the sand is poured into a vast sand filter carved decades ago from a
massive mango tree. As the sand rises, slats of coconut palm are added
to the structure holding in place the day's tons of sand that will then
be watered and left to filter the salt laden water into coconut palm
root canoes.
Later, this filtered saline will be again carried to racks of
hollowed coconut palms where the water evaporates, leaving blisteringly
white crystals of salt.
"I started working at 5 a.m. this morning and will keep on going up
and down, up and down all day until 6 p.m. tonight. It's hot and long
work that is never-ending," says Ibu Simprig, who will do this again
tomorrow and the next day.
Her hard earned salt sells locally for $1.50 per kilo. The same product on the Internet retails for tens of dollars per kilo.
Buyers of Ibu Simprig's salt are predominantly foreign tourists,
up-market restaurants and some serious buyers exporting her product, but
she can't get a toehold in the local markets.
"Javanese salt is coming here these days. If [it is] locals, no one
wants my salt - if it were not for the tourists, we'd be bankrupt. We
are small producers and [local] people don't like Kusamba salt to cook
with. They ask 'is this Kusamba?' and walk away," says Ibu Simprig, who
has no access to the stylized marketing of the Internet that would
quickly turn her salt almost to silver.
A low level of iodine in her salt is another block to her marketing.
"We take a lot to local markets, but we can't yet sell to supermarkets,"
she says.
Nearby, Simprig's husband, Ketut Rauh, who is now in his 60s,
endlessly flattens down and then rakes the black sand into peaked
runnels to dry. These are collected by his wife and another worker, Ibu
Simprug, who limps as she walks.
Ketut Rauh's legs are roped with varicose veins, his feet are swollen
and he moves like an automaton. Since 5 a.m. he has ferried hundreds of
buckets of seawater to the sand beds before starting the raking process
that will continue all day. His exhaustion is palpable.
"He has been at this since 5 a.m. when he started with the seawater.
And he will do this again and again and again," says Simprig, watching
her husband with concern.
"Yes, my legs are sore," says Ketut Rauh, stopping his perpetual
motion for a moment's rest in the shade. "My legs and my feet are always
sore."
Their assistant, Ibu Simprug, is also clearly in pain. With each step
across the black sand salt farm carrying 15 kilograms of wet sand on
her head, she winces. Her legs are bowed, and like Rauh, her feet are
swollen. She does not know her age, but she is a contemporary of Rauh
and Simprig.
"My legs are sore, yes. And I am very tired. First we water the sand,
then we move it all through the filter. We do this every day. I was
never married and have no children to help," says Simprug, who with Rauh
and Simprig shift around 300 square meters of sand through the filter
to harvest up to 15 kilograms of salt a day, in good weather. The sand
is then taken from the filter and returned to the sand beds to again be
watered from the sea, an endless task that on a good day nets the
elderly team $15.
Ten thousand kilometers away, a chef in a top restaurant adds a pinch
of their salt harvest to a dish costing more than several months'
income for these elderly Balinese salt farmers.
Most of you know how much I love maps, and if you follow the blog,
you also may remember about Google Streetview's rough start in
Indonesia with the Google Street View car involved in some hit and run
accidents, among other things.
A volcanic eruption in Indonesia that has displaced more than 22,000 people is intensifying, local authorities say. Mount Sinabung, which began spewing gas in September after a three-year slumber, has erupted over 220 times this week. The hot ashes and smoke
have caused pyroclastic flows -- a fast-moving mass of gas and rocks --
to stretch to seven kilometers down the southeast slope of the 2,600
meter (8,530 foot) mountain in North Sumatra. Last week, flows reached
three kilometers.
