The air smells of fish. But the four men hard at work at Sukiran's house in Pacitan regency, East Java, seem to ignore it. They continue on with their task: separating tuna flesh and skin from the bones. By the looks of it they are quite adept. In one day they can slice three to five tons into boneless fillets. That goes into a grinder with tapioca, garlic, salt, pepper and flavoring, and the resulting elastic dough becomes filling for tofu cakes.

THREE o'clock in the afternoon is an important hour for Sandy Afrianto. That is the best time to initiate breeding of his six-month-old vaname mother shrimp. From five ponds teeming with females, Sandy moved 45 of them to other ponds full of males.

Four hours later, Sandy examined the females one by one, placing the fertilized ones in a breeding vessel. "Normally 80 percent of the interbreeding works," said the 24-year-old shrimp breeder at the Aquaculture Center (BBAP) in Situbondo regency, East Java.

Hundreds of women could be seen working in silence. Some of them were wearing surgical masks. Although their mouths were covered, their hands worked quickly turning over and separating brown dried tobacco leaves. Other women could be seen skilfully rolling the leaves into sausage-shaped wads.

"In these rooms, you wouldn't be able smell it if anyone was wearing perfume. It would get lost out to the aroma of tobacco," Hari Mulyadi, assistant manager for technical operations at the Mangli Djaja Raja (MDR) Tobacco Warehouse in Jember, told Tempo on Monday last week.