Cow Manure: Used to be Dumped, Now Beloved

Kompas/Samuel Oktora

Apit Zamzam, 47, turns on a petromaks lamp in his cowshed in Padamukti, Margamukti village, Pangalengan district, Bandung regency, West Java, Sunday (17/9). The lamp can be powered by electricity produced by the processing of biogas from cow dung.

Night just arrived when farmer Apit Zamzam, 47, of community unit (RW) 024 in Padamukti village, Pangalengan, Bandung regency, lit up a kerosene lamp that illuminated his cowshed. The 16-square-meter shed houses eight dairy cattle. Accompanied by the cows’ lowing, Apit continued working.

He lifted up a pile of cow manure in the shed and brought it to a round concrete vessel just outside. Local farmers in southern Bandung, West Java, no longer hate cow manure. They used to overlook and avoid it but, nowadays, they love it.