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Asip A. Hasani
The Jakarta Post
Yogyakarta

Khoirun, a 37-year-old craftsman from the Nggamblong village
in Sleman regency, can not stop giggling when he is asked about
eceng gondok (a water hyacinth species), a plant on which he now
relies on to survive.

"In the old days, I and many other local villagers here almost
had a hatred of this plant. Every wet season, we regularly used
to work together to clean our fishponds and rice-fields from that
once 'useless' plant," recalled Khoirun.

For many generations, residents of Nggamblong, some 15
kilometers to the west of Yogyakarta, earned money from weaving
natural items, such as from coconut tree materials, for various
handmade handicrafts, such as mats and curtains.

Eceng gondok, which grew quickly to clog ponds or rivers, was
simply an enemy to the local villagers, most of whom worked on
farms.

The image of the water plant was changed four years ago, when
a handicraft trader from Jakarta visited the Nggamblong village
seeking woven handicrafts made of dried eceng gondok. All of a
sudden, the hatred toward the despised plant drastically changed.

In a matter of a few months, more orders of the new items came
to the village, encouraging dozens of the Nggamblong families,
including Khoirun and his neighbors, as well as inhabitants
living at nearby regencies, such as Bantul and Kulonprogo, to
shift professions.

The limited stock led the people to order eceng gondok from
Ambarawa, where the plant grows wildly in many swampy areas. The
businesses grew rapidly.

Khoirun alone now employs more than 10 craftsmen in his
'workshop' at his modest house with a production capacity of at
least 550 various types of handicrafts made from eceng gondok.
They range from handbags, boxes, fruit baskets, waste bins,
carpets, pillows, to different home and office accessories.

For the work, he pays his employees between Rp 10,000
(US$1.10) and Rp 20,000 per day each. But his employers often
receive overtime fees to meet the growing orders, mostly from
businessmen in Yogyakarta, Surakarta and Jakarta.

"Frankly speaking, I don't like working overtime, neither do
my craftsmen, because the quality is worse if we are forced to
meet a deadline which is actually beyond our production
capacity," Khoirun said.

He designs some of his Made-in-Nggamblong products.
Occasionally, he asks for the help of the other handicraft
trading companies.

As part of the deal, the finishing touch of his products is
carried out by his business partners, who make the orders.

According to him, the price of the items to the trading
companies ranged from Rp 15,000 to Rp 90,000 each.

At many local retail shops in Yogyakarta, for example,
Khoirun's works are sold for between Rp 35,000 and Rp 150,000
each.

The image of eceng gondok handicrafts and furniture is also on
the rise on the overseas markets thanks to the massive back-to-
nature campaign worldwide.

Consequently, the dried water plant -- once useless -- is
sold at Rp 3,500 per kilogram. Khoirun alone needs at least 100
kilograms per month.

"We now think of growing this parasite water plant in our rice
fields and fishponds in order to meet the growing demand of eceng
gondok-made handicrafts. It sounds rather ridiculous, right?"
Khoirun said.

Yogyakarta-based PT. Bhumi Prama Cipta director Emmy Pratiwi,
whose company manufactures handicrafts made of natural raw
materials, particularly producing fashion bags, said among the
major importers of the eceng-gondok-made handicrafts were the
U.S., Japan and several countries in Europe.

"This summer we just shipped some 4,000 bags made of the plant
to the U.S.," she said, adding that her company was currently
preparing another shipment of the same items, which has the price
of between $6 and $18 per piece, to Italy," Emmy said.

Unlike rattan or wood or other natural materials, eceng gondok
was slightly thicker and much easier to shape in forming and
designing an item.

"The handicrafts also gives a more natural impression," she
said.

Unfortunately, she said, the time of shipment orders from her
overseas partners usually do not match the dry season in
Indonesia, in which the sun is badly needed to quickly help dry
the water plant.

That is why Emmy often rejects a certain number of orders
which arrived during the wet season unless the stock is still
available.

Judging from the growing local demands of eceng gondok-made
stuffs, she said that the industry urgently needed extra raw
materials. Emmy herself already planned to establish several
factories in Kalimantan and other islands in which the water
plant is still described as a wild and worthless species and a
parasite by locals.

But she is still stuck with another serious problem: finding
talented craftsmen.