Going all-out with Porang

Through porang, according to Dolken, farmers could promote their welfare and live more prosperously.

KOMPAS/SAIFUL RIJAL YUNUS

Dolken

Like a well-versed researcher, Dolken, 41, is capable of expounding on a tuber plant, porang, in great detail. More than just theoretically, the holder of a master’s in law who has no farming background “engineers” the pattern of planting as well as the tuber’s dormancy on a self-taught basis.

On Monday afternoon (22/3/2021), Dolken was walking amid the porang plants in the backyard of his house. The plot measuring eight ares (1 are equals 100 square meters) in Hombis, Wuawua, Kendari, Southeast Sulawesi, has been cultivated and mostly planted with porang (Amorphopallus muelleri). Some parts of the land are left vacant for planting preparations each month.

His afternoon activity has been set over the last few months. Besides planting, he regularly weeds porang plants that have reached over a meter in height. He frequently caresses their leaves or “greets” the indigenous tuber of the equatorial zone.

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He does the same activity in the morning. When the sun is out, he gives organic fertilizer. This routine has been carried out for almost a year.

“While usually porang is only grown in the rainy season, I plant it beyond the season. I did it last month and also just now. Later I’ll try to do it monthly. One can say that this plot is my research site,” said Dolken.

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Apart from weeding and fertilizing, the man with a master’s in civil law from Airlangga University is also busily nursing porang seedlings on the house terrace. More than 2,000 tubers are arranged on several racks. The seedlings are produced from his backyard plants to be further cultivated in some other places.

KOMPAS/SAIFUL RIJAL YUNUS

Dolken

Like the planting pattern he maintains, the seedlings also need special treatment. Humidity and light are the aspects he safeguards during the period of dormancy, which is the time of a halt in plant growth. This period of “suspended animation” is widely experienced by plants due to chemical, physical and other factors.

For porang, the dormant period can last for seven months. Dolken has independently found a method to shorten this dormant period of plants to only a maximum of 1.5 months.

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With seedling treatment, the planting time has also changed. Porang is normally planted when the wet season arrives to meet its water requirement. However, with the special method he has invented, planting beyond the season is also possible.

Planting outside the designated time is indeed the focus of what he has been developing over the last several months. While hastening the harvest time, the pattern can turn out fairly big profits although limited land is used for planting.

While people normally harvest in one planting season or one year, with the pattern I’ve developed they can have two harvests

He calculates that on the plot of eight ares (800 square meters) borrowed from his neighbors, he can produce thousands of seedlings, which can be replanted within a short time. Some of the seedlings are salable.

“While people normally harvest in one planting season or one year, with the pattern I’ve developed they can have two harvests,” he said, adding that with a profit of around Rp70 million per planting, in one year over Rp100 million could be earned.

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With his invented pattern, Dolken has now become an agricultural company’s consultant in Konawe. On two-hectare land, he grows about 2,000 seedlings by applying his planting pattern. The company will develop porang tubers along with their derivative products.

KOMPAS/SAIFUL RIJAL YUNUS

Dolken

Months of research

Dolken has no farming origin. His parents are small-scale traders. Growing up in Baubau, he studied at the School of Law, Halu Oleo University (UHO), Kendari. After graduating, he worked with a state-own enterprise for years.

Eager to further his education, this father of three earned his master’s from Airlangga University, Surabaya. After finishing his study and continuing his work, the man, also a musician, felt something was incompatible with his idealism. He decided to quit and serve as a mining company’s consultant.

From then on, he was in search of everything about porang, ranging from its species, endemic environment, effectiveness and uses, to its planting technique. “I don’t deny that my first acquaintance with porang had an economic motive. Moreover, I observed my friend’s porang on a two-hectare plot and the price bid for it was almost Rp2 billion,” said Dolken.

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Porang tubers in fact have many benefits. While they are the basic material of shirataki noodles and rice, Japan’s favorite food, the tubers can be processed into a tofu material. This food has high values of carbohydrate and glucomannan. Nonetheless, the cyanide content of porang tubers requires special processing.

Not only for food, porang tubers can also be processed for industries of beauty products, bullet-proof materials, electric insulators and aircraft interior equipment. The high benefits and economic values make porang a new idol.

KOMPAS/SAIFUL RIJAL YUNUS

Dolken

Through his research for nearly three months, Dolken created his own module. He described the benefits, species, characteristics, processing and planting method of porang. The module was complete with the budget plan to start porang planting business.

Then he was seeking seedlings in several places such as Konawe Islands and South Konawe. When he returned, he started planting. With organic fertilizer produced by Southeast Sulawesi people, found a far more effective way of cultivating porang.

The knowledge he gained is not for himself. His peers, relatives or people interested in porang regularly visit his home, or he visits them. Dolken has also formed a group called Kepakan, short for Kelompok Petani Keren Kendari (Kendari Smart Farmers Group).

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Dolken said he had purposely made a group with a two-hectare area so as to be able to focus on applying the knowledge and at the same time spreading the zeal for planting to a lot of people.

Through porang, added Dolken, farmers could promote their welfare and live more prosperously. The high sale value of porang and the growing interest of buyers become the momentum to create its own market. Furthermore, his dream is to enable all farmers to better enjoy the benefits of the tuber species now brought into focus.

Dolken

Born: Makassar, 10 August 1980

Education:

- Master’s in Civil Law, Airlangga University

- Law graduate of Halu Oleo University

Wife: Mulyati

This article was translated by Aris Prawira.