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INDONESIA
Mushrooms from volcanic slopes
Indonesia is currently neither a serious producer nor ma- jor consumer of mushrooms, but it is a nation with almost 250 million inhabitants who live on the 17,508 islands that comprise the archipelago, so it represents immense mar- ket potential. We visited some promising and interesting companies.
By Magda Verfaillie, Mycelia
Over the years a number of companies have been established in Indonesia, particularly on the heavily populated island of Java, with the main focus being exports. These enterprises were often set up in col- laboration with Dutch partners, which is not surprising considering the shared colonial history. Mushrooms are not part of the culinary tradition in Indonesia, and average consumption is less than 100 grams per capita per year.
Eka Timur Raya At the end of the 1960s, a very ambitious mushroom growing farm called Dieng Djaya was constructed in Wonosobo in Central Java. In its heyday it employed 10,000 people, but in 2002 it unfortunately closed. In 1999, a more realistic project was started in East Java, close to Pasuruan, in a breathtakingly beautiful volcanic region. Eka Timur Raya or ‘Etira’ for short, quickly turned into a success story – which is mainly attributa- ble to the efficient management of Maryono Budi, who learned the craft previously at Dieng Djaya, combined with the excellent consultancy services provided by
Willy Kwanten from Belgium. Eka Timur Raya produces spawn, compost and mushrooms and employs a workforce of 800. They also have a canning facility which employ 350 people. A part of Etira also has a frozen mushroom facility named “Etira Champi’mer Indonesia” which is a joint venture of Etira and Topp-Im BV, a Holding Company of Champi’mer BV Netherlands. The spawn produc- tion and canning is done in the valley, while compost production and mushroom growing take place higher up at an altitude of 1800 metres above sea level, where the climate is milder.
Spawn quality control by Sauqi (l) (manager frozen facility) and Kalatidjo (manager spawnlab) at Eka Timur Raya.
Uphill, downhill The spawn laboratory produces 1200 litres of spawn daily, contained in 1.2 litre plastic bags sealed with cotton wool plugs. Sorghum was previously used as a carrier, but the company has recently developed its own ingenious recipe based on maize. Mr. Susilo, head of the lab, can be proud of the finished product: spawn regularly distributed through the medium, without a trace of stroma. Every day a lorry treks uphill to trans- port the fresh spawn to the compost facility. The compost is made using locally sourced raw ma- terials: rice straw, bagasse and corn cobs. Just before fermentation, chicken slurry and cotton seed is added to the mixture. 60 tons of pre-wet material is placed into a bunker, and every four days this mixture is lifted out and deposited into the following bunker. According to Saman Hadi, the manager of the plant, Etira prepares 180 tons of phase I compost every day. After eight hours of pasteurisation at 60 degrees Celsius and 6 days conditioning, bags are quickly filled with 17 kg of compost and 200 ml of spawn each. In four hours, 13 young men will have filled the bags with 21 tons of compost, sealed and flattened the bags, and loaded them onto the lorry. Incubation and cultivation are performed on a loca- tion higher up in 422 growing rooms, each of which measures 200 m². The blocks are stacked side by side on bamboo shelving, five tiers high. According to Mary- ono, bamboo shelving is more resistant and, above all, cheaper than iron steel shelving. After 14 days of incubation the blocks are covered with casing soil- also made by the company. This casing is a pasteurised blend of turf from a nearby lake, coco peat and chalk. The water holding capacity is rather on the low side, but there is no better local alternative available. Pin- heading is started by cooling the room to 17 degrees – this is also the only time that cooling is used. The average yield at Etira is 25 kg per square metre, which is considerable in view of the raw materials and the conditions. Thirty four lorry loads of raw materials make the ascent
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