Dita Adi Saputra – Owner CV Fruitanol
Salak fruit is often overproduced and salak farmers have experienced difficulties finding new markets for their crops. This excess was first noted in research findings in 1995 and reached a peak in 1998. The salak crop in Bangunkerto village alone produces around 1 ton of salak fruit waste every month. This waste is dumped locally, attracting flies and other insects, creating an environmental hazard.
Dita Adi Saputra and his colleagues have developed a pilot project to utilize this fruit in the production of bio‐ethanol. Salak waste has a proven potential for use as organic fertilizer. Dita has envisioned an enterprise run by the community as a commercial vehicle to produce and sell bio‐ethanol and organic fertilizer.
Dita Adi Saputra – CV Fruitanol
With guidance from a team of consultants, lead by Dita, a community of Salak farmers will be involved directly in the daily operation of this social enterprise. Community heads will become the directors of this enterprise. Decision making will involve all of the farmers, since they will be the owners of the enterprise. The directors will facilitate, direct and lead any strategic and technical meeting for the farmers’ community in running the enterprise.
Farmers will receive additional income from producing and selling bio‐ethanol and organic fertilizer from their fruit waste, and will gain innovative skills in transforming waste into high‐value product. Farmers will also gain valuable tangible assets in the form of equipment, and applied technology, and the local environment will become healthier with a reduction in waste dumped in their own backyards.
Bio‐ethanol energy produced by the community will help farmers in the village and surrounding areas to become energy‐independent, replacing expensive kerosene as an energy source for cooking. Via the multiplier effect, this enterprise will also create jobs, and improve farmers’ living standards. Some of the potential areas for job creation will be in the design, production and promotion of bio‐ethanol stoves for household use. Such stoves are clean, safe and cost‐effective. This social enterprise will also monitor the impacts of the project, for example by conducting regular competitor and market analysis, and studying the economic development of the community.
Now, with support from Arthur Guinness Fund Community Entrepreneurs Challenge (AGF-CEC), Dita plans to work with an agritourism center in Turi to market the biofuel his project produces. “We have already begun producing [biofuel] … In future we plan to work with a tourist village that is already promoting salak farming. This will help the tourist village promote itself as a place where farmers use technology to achieve self sufficiency.” Dita said the competition had allowed him to meet other social entrepreneurs who were doing inspiring work.
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