It took a decade for a husband-and-wife team of botanists to invent a supplement for fertilizer. Selling it is proving even harder

STANDING IN A rice field in central Java, Umar Hasan Saputra doesn’t have to point out the difference between one half of the field and the other. The first rows of rice plants are tall, thick and bright green. In contrast, the plants in the other half of the field look wan.

“It’s pretty obvious wouldn’t you say?” asks Saputra, founder of a company that produces and distributes Nutrisi Saputra, an agricultural growth tonic he named after himself. “This could win me a Nobel Prize someday.”

That day is definitely a long way off. It took Saputra and his wife – Yoke Eliyani, who along with her husband, also graduated from the Bogor Agricultural Institute in West Java – 10 arduous years to develop the line of products the couple says will replace chemical fertilizers, save water, revolutionize farming and improve living standards throughout Indonesia. Saputra compares his trials to those of Thomas Edison and the creation of the light bulb. “I have failed 100 times,” says the 39-year-old professor-cum-businessman, “but never given up.”

But the couple’s product has yet to gain popularity, or even government approval, for a complicated mix of reasons. Farmers are more comfortable with traditional fertilizer – and the fertilizer companies are hardly ready to give up their markets. The government is afraid of a hoax. And Saputra hasn’t revealed the composition of his formula because he doesn’t want it to get ripped off. He compares it to Coca-Cola’s secret formula; only he and his wife know it.

Saputra says his product is starch- and mineral-based and taken mostly from the sea. Of its composition, all he will say is that it contains “essential nutrition with living organisms and precursors,” which includes calcium, magnesium, potassium and sodium. That’s not enough detail for the Indonesian government.

The Agriculture Ministry’s website declares that Nutrisi Saputra (or Saputra Nutrients) “does not fulfill soil needs” and “has not been proven to increase yields as promised and publicized.” It has called for further testing on the long-term effects of the product.

“Why is he secretive about the formula and how can it claim to do what it claims when there can only be a certain amount of nutrients in a bottle?” asks Bramantyo Projosusilo, a farmer in Ngawi, central Java. “Unless the nutrients are already in the soil, the farmer must add them in, so I would be wary of his claims.”

Academics also have their concerns. “We need to be careful that the product gets certified and verified by a third party,” warns Mohammad Maksum, professor of social economic and agricultural industry at Gajah Mada University.

H S Dillon, an agricultural economist who writes on agrarian affairs, says, “I don’t believe in miracles. I would not say it is revolutionary.”

Saputra shrugs off the criticism. “We need to change the mentality of the farmer to cut down on fertilizer,” he adds. “I don’t want to replace fertilizer because the industry is too big and would feel threatened.” Still, he would like farmers one day to be able to reduce water usage by 30 percent and cut fertilizer by 50 percent, which he says is possible with his product.

In the meantime, PT Saputra International’s 52 employees in Bogor are working on other applications and products, from an anti-aging cream to a new rice strain called Saputra Aromatic. The need is huge for such a strain in a country that now imports rice to feed its people and is facing the challenges of adequate water supplies and a scarcity of agricultural land.

And with Indonesians spending an average of 25 percent of their household income on rice, keeping the staple affordable during a time of rising food prices could be critical to national stability “It is not easy introducing new products here,” Saputra laments. “You have to change a 20-year-old mindset.”

Saputra has to prove himself field by field. Last August, the town of Purworejo in central Java invited him to witness a bumper harvest, and local officials and farmers lavished the inventor with praise.

“We thank Pak Saputra and Nutrisi Saputra for helping increase our harvest from six tonnes per hectare to almost 10 tonnes,” Sumrahadi, the local village head, told the enthusiastic gathering. Soon after, Saputra was surrounded by farmers and peppered with questions.

Saputra says his product is so natural and safe it can be fed to fish, cattle or even humans. He stirs a spoonful into his coffee. “I eat it every day,” he says.