POTENTIAL USE OF BUFFALO SKIN AS A RAW MATERIAL FOR LEATHER TANNING INDUSTRY IN INDONESIA

Leather industry and leather goods industry in Indonesia reached the peak in1986-1996. Export of leather products (shoes, gloves, and jackets) contributed U.S. $ 2.4 billion to the government. Export of leather and leather products ranks third on the non-oil exports, the level after the export of textiles and wood. Since the economic crisis in Indonesia in 1997, nearly all industry sectors were collapsed, including the leather and leather products industry (Untari et al., 2009).\ud The fundamental problem that occurs in the development of the domestic leather industry was the problem of raw materials. The supply of raw material is influenced by various factors such as human as the subject, animals as the objects, land as an ecology base and technology as a tool skills (Suhud, 1989).\ud The human factor plays an important role in this aspect of the supply of raw materials. It is associated with the activity and production process, including production management, health, feeding and increasing population and genetic improvement. Another factor is the skill associated with human slaughterhouse. Leather raw material quality is affected directly by the butcher skills in the process of debarking.One of the problems faced by the leather industry and leather goods industry in Indonesia is availability of raw materials. While the demand from various countries for goods made of leather is increasing, the ability of the domestic leather industry to provide the products are still very low due to insufficient supply of raw materials. So far,the raw materials for leather industry are dominated by cow, goat or sheep leather, while the raw material of buffalo skin is still very limited. As buffalo population in Indonesia is low, the use of buffalo skin as raw material leather industry is limited. The characteristics of buffalo leather are similar to those of cow leather, therefore buffalo leather has potential to support the supply of raw materials for the leather industry . The final quality of the buffalo skin is determined by the buffalo population in the upstream sector, which should be in line with the improvement to production, feeding, and health management on farm sector, as well as cutting techniques, pickling, and tanning in the downstream secto