A unified movement is necessary to promote diverse local food sources with higher nutritional content. Relying on the nation’s wealth of local foods will reduce food imports.
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JAKARTA, KOMPAS – A unified movement is necessary to promote diverse local food sources with higher nutritional content. Relying on the nation’s wealth of local foods will reduce food imports.
Despite the awareness over their strategic function, local sources of staple foods have been marginalized by imported rice and wheat. A shift in public consumption patterns has been observed in Papua and Maluku. Data from the Agriculture Ministry’s Food Security Agency shows that, between 2009 and 2013, the two regions had the lowest rice consumption nationwide. Rice consumption was 50.78 percent of total food intake in Maluku and 35.61 percent of total food intake in Papua.
Observations on Tuesday (27/2) in Yoka kampung, Jayapura, showed that most of its majority-Papuan residents consumed rice as staple food, with sago only as a side dish.
Yoka kampung resident Martha Mebri, 50, said the older generation still ate sago. However, most of the younger generation had switched to consuming rice. The shift was triggered by the conversion of sago plantations into residential areas. As a result, the price of sago increased. The government’s rice assistance (rastra) program was also cited as a cause. Yoka’s residents typically receive 10 kilograms of rice per month.
“We have no more land for sago plantations, as they have been converted into residential zones. In Jayapura, the price for a 25-kilogram sack of sago from Ayapo and Puay is Rp 300,000 (US$21.9),” Martha said.
In the kampungs of Atas and Sawa in Asmat regency, most residents consume rice and instant noodles, even though they have many sago plantations.
Atas kampung head Markus Titur said that the shift in consumption pattern was caused by the cheap price of rice and government assistance programs.
Agats Bishop Aloysius Murwito OFM said that the prevalence of rice assistance for the Asmat people reduced the people’s work ethos in managing their sago plantations. “Most prefer to wait for the government’s rice aid. If the aid is delayed, the people are reluctant to go back to their fields, even though they are starving,” he said.
According to Aloysius, the government should encourage local people to cultivate local food sources. The diversity of local foods that are cultivated locally is the key to food security.
The younger generation in Ambon, Maluku, has also left sago behind. In Batumerah, high school student Rifan, 16, said that he ate rice every day. He said he did not like papeda (sago porridge) or sliced sago. “My mother and father eat papeda once in a while,” he said.
Agribusiness lecturer Wardis Girsang of Pattimura University’s agriculture school said that the declining popularity of sago among local youths was caused by sago’s persistent image as an inferior food source. This was exacerbated by the government’s lack of support in developing local food sources.
Nutrition education
Community nutritionist Tan Shot Yet of the Dr Tan & Remanlay Institute said the change in a community’s eating habits highlighted problems in the education and socialization of healthy and diverse eating habits. “There is something wrong with the many statements and socialization on nutrition to date,” he said.
Efforts to promote community nutrition were not based on the philosophy of healthy eating. Instead, they mostly focused on how to choose and process food. Information was not provided on why certain food sources were healthier than others. As a result, the general public did not have basic food knowledge.
Food Security Agency head Agung Hendriadi at the Agriculture Ministry said that the agency was pushing for food diversification. In the downstream, the agency actively involves formal and informal community leaders in its campaigns on healthy eating habits. The campaigns are based on preserving recipes across the archipelago that used local ingredients and on developing local food sources as alternatives to rice.
In the upstream, the agency campaigns for developing home gardens as a source of diverse and healthy food for households. The agency is working with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to promote sago in Southeast Sulawesi.
Agung denied that the agency’s diversification program was stagnating and was not being promoted as widely as the paddy, corn and soy (pajale) program. He said that food diversification and the pajale programs went hand in hand. They included the development of small industries using local food sources as raw materials, the development of the kawasan rumah pangan lestari (KRPL, or sustainable home gardening area) program and the food diversification program through socialization and promotion.
The home gardening development program was reportedly implemented in 18,000 villages by 2016. The program targeted 1,691 villages in 2017 and this year, 2,300 villages in 33 provinces. The local food diversification program involves 59 groups in 23 provinces. Last year, self-sustaining food zones were established in 78 locations.