Sago Drowning in its Own Land

KOMPAS/BAHANA PATRIA GUPTA

Yohanes Sapulette produces sago on Sunday (5/5/2019) in Masihulan village, North Seram district, Central Maluku. The number of sago makers is declining due to the decreasing demand for sago as a food source.

Mama Fani, 35, and Mama Punusa, 40, had just arrived at their “house” that had woka palm leaves as roofing and no wall beside the Tayawi River in the Aketajawe Lolobata National Park, North Maluku.

For the previous month, their families – members of the Tobelo Dalam tribe – had lived in the forest to search for dammar resin, boars, deer and sago. Some of these are for themselves and some are for sale.

Prior to consumption, dried sago is mixed with roasted coconut. Three to four kilograms of sago, made in three days, are prepared for a week’s worth of meals for six people. When they are lucky, they can find bananas, cassava, prawns, freshwater fish and even deer.

However, finding sago is not easy anymore. They have to go deeper into the forest. “In the forest where we live, there are sago trees nearby. If the sago is spent, we move,” Mama Punusa said.

Like Fani and Punusa, Yohanes Sapulette also cultivates his own sago in Masihulan, North Seram, Central Maluku, Maluku. Apart from for his family, the sago is sold at Rp 50,000 (US$3.58) per tumang (leaf wrap). One tumang can contain 15-20 kg of wet sago flour. Yohanes cut down an 8-meter sago tree, split it and squeezed the sago essence to create smooth flour.

The smooth sago flour is stored in 40 tumang. The sago flour can be used to make papeda or sagu lempeng (sago slices). One tumang of sago is enough to last Yohanes’ family 10 days. Purchasing rice for 10 days’ worth of meals can cost them Rp 100,000.

Sago’s popularity as a local food source in Maluku is decreasing. It is no longer a staple food for local communities. The local government’s poor support on sago cultivation exacerbates this. In Maluku, sago plantations are converted into paddy fields, roads and transmigration settlements. The number of sago makers is decreasing as sago consumption declines in line with the government’s national rice program. Currently, sago makers are mostly older people like Yohanes, who is 58. “Many younger people do not know how to make sago,” he said.

Yohanes said that consuming sago made the body stronger. Rice has sugar content while bland-tasting sago has none. To ensure adequate sugar intake, sago slices can be enjoyed with tea or coffee.

KOMPAS/BAHANA PATRIA GUPTA

Yohanes Sapulette arranges sago in pots made from palm leaves on Sunday (5/5/2019) in Masihulan village, North Seram district, Central Maluku. Sago is a staple food with many health benefits, but the decreasing demand for sago as a food source has caused a decline in the number of sago makers.

Wardis Girsang, who lectures at the Agribusiness study program in Pattimura University’s Agriculture Faculty in Ambon, said that sago had a similar carbohydrate content to rice, namely 80-84 grams. The difference is that rice has sugar and protein while sago has none.

I eat sago cake every day in the place of bread. I enjoy it with a cup of coffee.

British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace wrote about Maluku’s sago in his seminal book The Malay Archipelago, which was published in 1869. In the book, he recounted his experiences of journeying through Seram Island, the Matabello archipelago and Goram (October 1859-1860). “I eat sago cake every day in the place of bread. I enjoy it with a cup of coffee,” Wallace wrote.

Save sago

Wardis said the government’s support for sago had been dismal. The government is too focused on managing rice, corn and soy in line with the national food policy. Kompas wrote in 2015 that around 350 hectares of sago forest in Besi village, North Seram, was converted into paddy fields. The number of sago trees in Maluku has decreased by 50 percent in the past 50 years. In 2016, only 40,514 hectares of sago plantations with 3,797,493 trees are left.

Wardis said that sago was superior in certain aspects. It can store water, self-regenerate and be ready for harvesting at nine years old. Paddy, however, uses water profusely. One kilogram of unhusked rice requires 4,500 liters of water. Paddy-planting area in Maluku is limited. Furthermore, of the prepared 56,000 hectares of paddy fields, only 15,000 hectares are productive with a yield of 70,000 tons of rice. This is only half of Maluku’s need.

“Local staple food should have been prioritized. This has only been a plan so far, without any concrete action,” he said.

There are various staple foods in Indonesia other than rice. Sorghum, sago, sweet potato, corn, taro, cassava and barley are examples of carbohydrate sources other than rice. Dependency on one staple food will only create gaps in the food security program.

“In 1954, rice only constituted 53.5 percent of carbohydrate source nationwide, with the rest being local carb sources. The figure grew to 81.1 percent in 1981 and decreased again to 75 percent in 2017. This means that rice is still Indonesia’s number-one choice of staple food,” Biodiversity Foundation (Kehati) program director Rony Megawanto said on Thursday.

Cultivation of other food sources like sorghum is not as difficult as that of rice. Sorghum can grow in dry areas and does not need pesticides.

Pertamina Kehati ecosystem manager Puji S. Hanggarawati said that genetic variety could disappear if rice was too prioritized as a staple food. People can forget about local food diversity because there is no cultivation. This may lead to genetic erosion.

“Cultivation of other food sources like sorghum is not as difficult as that of rice. Sorghum can grow in dry areas and does not need pesticides,” Puji said.

In the 2015-2019 Strategic Food Policy, the target for rice production is 82 million tons, for corn it is 24.1 million tons and for soy it is 2.6 million tons. This shows that these three staple foods are the main targets in food development in Indonesia. Again, rice is the main priority.

(LUKI AULIA/ARIS PRASETYO)