Entrepreneur Budi Santosa -- From Machines To Cattle

INDONESIA - By 2010 there will be an annual national shortfall of six million cattle, with unmet demands causing domestic meat prices to soar, Budi Santosa has predicted.

23 July 2007

2 minute read

Asia

"Every year the consumption of beef almost doubles," he said. "This is happening because the tastes of the Indonesian middle class are changing and they are becoming more affluent."

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"I thought it more useful to convert green waste to meat, so I bought some local cattle and fed them rejected corn husks and leaves collected from the markets."

Budi, president director of PT Agrindo.

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Budi, who is the president director of East Java agricultural machinery manufacturer PT Agrindo, is starting to work less in the business that has dominated his life, leaving daily administration tasks to family members.

To fill the vacuum, he has shifted his energies away from developing lightweight tractors, land-tilling gear, pumps and rice mills to imported cattle raised in feedlots. A shipment of more than 200 steers and young bulls from Australia is due in early July.

Yards are currently being constructed at the rear of Agrindo's Gresik plant, southwest of Surabaya, to take a further 2,000 cattle.

"I've always liked animals," Budi said. Looking around, this is easy to understand. Timor deer roam the factory compound. Crocodiles paddling in a pool against the boundary lie ready to snap foolhardy intruders. Nearby is a pen of rare Javanese warty pigs.

"The cattle enterprise started as a hobby when I was on a Surabaya city committee investigating waste disposal," he said. "I thought it more useful to convert green waste to meat, so I bought some local cattle and fed them rejected corn husks and leaves collected from the markets.

"I started researching animal nutrition and marketing on the internet and in government departments. The more I learned, the more I discovered about changing patterns of meat consumption and the country's developing taste for beef.

"But I could never buy an even line of cattle in sufficient numbers locally. Trading was complicated and the prices jumped when sellers knew I was in the market. So I've started buying from overseas."

The new company is called AgriRanch and the idea is to import cattle weighing 200 kilograms and re-sell them for slaughter when they reach 320 kilograms. Returns rise significantly when white young bulls are sold for Idul Adha, the Muslim feast of sacrifice ahead of the pilgrimage to Mecca.

Source: Jakarta Post