Minister Of Industry Agus Gumiwang: Sago Industry Needs To Be Improved Via Education

Minister of Industry Agus Gumiwang Kartasasmita. (Photo: Doc. ANTARA)

Minister of Industry (Menperin) Agus Gumiwang Kartasasmita said education on sago commodities is needed to increase the popularity of the sago industry in Indonesia.

According to Agus, low popularity is an obstacle to the development and research process, so the potential of sago commodities is difficult to optimize.

"We need education that sago can be an alternative source of carbohydrates and of course the industry can be developed so that Indonesia can become one of the largest suppliers of sago bags in the world," Agus said as quoted by ANTARA, Monday, July 29.

To make Indonesia a world sago producer, Agus said, there are still several obstacles that must be faced, one of which is the supply chain flow for sago raw materials.

Agus said that Indonesia has a sago area of 5.5 million hectares or approximately 85 percent of sago land in the world.

However, its utilization is still less than 4 percent.

Data from the Ministry of Agriculture (Kementan) in 2022, the area of land used is only 112,000 hectares with a total production of 386 thousand tons.

In addition, the sago area is still dominated by people's plantations with a presentation of 94.34 percent of land tenure, and contributed 99 percent of sago production.

"The people's plantation infrastructure is still simple, even very simple with very minimal supporting facilities. This causes the supply chain of sago from upstream to downstream to be limited and even very limited," he said.

Agus said that the increase in sago production must also be supported by skills or human resources (HR).

According to him, human resources for the development of the sago processing industry are considered minimal, so they need more attention.

"This requires special attention to accelerate the increase," said Agus.

The Ministry of Industry (Kemenperin) has also made various efforts to increase the downstream development of sago, namely by developing product diversification, facilitating cooperation between processing industry and users, encouraging the Domestic Component Level certification program (TKDN) as well as machine and equipment restructuring programs for the sago processing industry.