Toelangan Sugar Factory, Ravaged by Old Age

Kompas/Bahana Patria Gupta

Installation processing coordinator Achmad Muzayyad inspects machines belonging to the Toelangan sugar factory in Sidoarjo regency, East Java, on Wednesday (10/5). The factory has ceased operations due to difficulties in finding raw materials.

The Toelangan Sugar Factory is a legend in the archipelago’s sugar industry. The Dutch heritage building is famed as a backdrop in Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s celebrated Bumi Manusia (This Earth of Mankind) tetralogy. However, the factory is in a miserable state nowadays. For the people who once worked and depended their livelihoods on the legendary factory’s “crazy wheel”, the factory is nothing but a tale of sorrow.

It was noon at the Suikerfabriek Toelangan in Sidoarjo. The sunlight penetrated through the cracks on the roof of the massive building bearing the words Anno 1850 in Tulangan village, Tulangan district, on Wednesday (10/5/2017). Outside the fence of the deserted yellow-colored building, a batagor (fried dumplings) seller was just sitting as he waited for customers to come by.

Achmad Arif, 32, the batagor seller, got to his feet as a customer approached him. After serving the customer a plate of batagor, the seller walked back to his seat and resumed his talks with his fellow sellers.

“When I am lucky, I can bring back home Rp 20,000 (US$1.5) like today. However, more often, the other sellers are luckier than me,” he said.

Suddenly, Arif looked longingly at the deserted factory. His expression changed into that of sadness. “When will the factory reopen? I just want to get back to work. Having a steady job and income to feed my wife, my kids, my mom and my siblings,” he said.

A machinery graduate at a vocational technical high school, Arif had worked as a technician at the factory since 2005. Despite his status as a part time worker, Arif was happy as he could fulfill his dreams. At first, he stayed with other odd job workers at a factory employee’s house.

In Arif’s eyes, working at the Toelangan sugar factory was not just about improving his family’s economy but also to boost his family’s social status. Status means everything, as it helps him gain trust from financial institutions. As an unemployed, he faces great difficulties in obtaining business loans.

Not far from where Arif was, former Toelangan part time worker Ainurrofik, 51, sold iced sugarcane drinks. Rofik, as he is called by his family and friends, has a wife and two children, one of whom is now in a vocational high school.

“I sell sugarcane drinks to help pay my kid’s school fee. At first, I was confused as I could not find any work and I was already quite old. We have no money as the factory’s closure was sudden,” said Rofik, who processed palm nectar at the factory.

Arif and Rofik are just a few of the people who once worked and depended their livelihoods on the sugar factory’s “crazy wheel”. The crazy wheel is what the workers call the giant grind with the two-meter-wide gear. The nickname is popular among local sugarcane farmers and businesspeople.

The factory that in the This Earth of Mankind novel was portrayed as being surrounded by huge swaths of sugarcane plantation was closed due to sugarcane supply shortage. It operated for the last time last year. The milling period only lasted seven days, much shorter than the usual 160-day milling period, as much of the sugarcane plantation was already changed into residential area.

The closure of the 167-year-old factory under the management of state-owned plantation company PT Perkebunan Nusantara (PTPN) X left behind sorrow for thousands of people, comprising fixed employees and contracted workers and their families.

Sugar-based food industry is where hundreds of thousands of sugarcane farmers and their farmers depend their lives upon. A factory with a 1,500-ton-a-day milling capacity needs at least 4,000 hectares of sugarcane plantation.

The death of one sugar factory spells doom for around 8,100 jobs and businesses. These people are not just employees and farmers, but also plantation workers, drivers, fertilizer sellers, and transportation businesspeople with jobs linked to the sugar business. This does not yet include the people who crowd night markets during milling season.

Historical tourism

PTPN X president director Dwi Satriyo Annuroho said that the company had yet to have new plans after the factory’s closure. Many wishes to see Toelangan preserved as a historical tourism site, as everything in the building are Dutch heritages and still working fine.

However, efforts to preserve the important historical part of the national sugar industry seem to be in vain. That day, a number of workers are struggling to tear down a part of the milling machine.

“This part will be taken to support the operations of the Djombang Baru sugar factory, which is also under PTPN X’s management,” one of the workers said.

Toelangan sugar factory installation processing coordinator Achmad Muzayyah said that machine parts from the factory had been taken to be used in other sugar factories under PTPN X’s management since a year ago. Even the parts that still remain have already been earmarked for uses in other factories and it is only a matter of time before they are taken away.

“The crane on top of the sugarcane emplacement will be taken to the Tjoekir sugar factory in Jombang. Other parts will be taken to the Mrican sugar factory in Kediri. The electricity panel and the palm nectar tap will also be used at other factories,” Muzayyad said.

Other than the Toelangan sugar factory, the government will soon close the Kanigoro sugar factory in Madiun, with a capacity of 1,800 tons of sugarcane per day. PTPN XI president director Mohammad Cholidi has reaffirmed the government’s factory closure plan at the Indonesian Sugarcane Farmers Association national work meeting in Pasuruan, East Java, on Friday (12/5/2017).

The sugar factory closures add to the long list of miserable locally-sourced sugar factories. Of the originally 16 sugar factories in Sidoarjo, only three are still standing, namely Watoetulis, Kremboong and Candi Baru. The Kriang, Porong, Sroeni and Boedoeran sugar factory have been closed down.

Traces of the presence of old industries in the nation can still be seen in repurposed former factory buildings, such as in the National Police general training center in Porong district, the Medium Air Defense Artillery headquarters in Sruni village, Gedangan district and the Army Engineers 2 center in Buduran district.

Much agricultural land in Sidoarjo regency has been converted to industrial and residential areas. Currently, the regency has only 12,500 hectares of farmlands, most of which is for rice and sugarcane. Earlier this year, the regency administration proposed to the East Java government to reduce the farmlands by 5,000 hectares, leaving behind only 7,000 hectares.

It is only a matter of time that the government-owned sugar factories will be closed down one by one. Under the pretense that the factories are old and inefficient and coupled with regulations that do not support local sugarcane farmers. In the end, locally-sourced sugar factories will be completely taken over by new sugar factories that process only imported raw sugar.