Lestari Alamku Bestari Saguku

Community processing of sago (Commons Wikimedia)

JAKARTA - It is difficult to deny the biological wealth in Indonesia's forests. The availability of food in the form of grains, tubers, mushrooms, fruits, starch, and grains fills the overgrown land of this country. One of the wealth is manifested in sago. How abundant is Indonesia's natural potential. Gemah ripah loh jinawi.

Seeing this potential, the First President of Indonesia, Soekarno, even raised this wealth in one of his speeches at the Bogor Agricultural Institute (IPB) in 1952. "Food is a matter of the survival of a nation. If the people's food needs cannot be met, it will be "catastrophic." Therefore, it needs big, radical, and revolutionary efforts, "exclaimed Soekarno.

Of course, it was not without reason that Bung Karno was excited when he delivered the above speech. He was anxious to see that the country he was leading at that time was very dependent on food from outside. Like it or not, with all his power, Soekarno pushed for food independence and sovereignty. Fixed price.

More deeply, Soekarno expressed his hope that the Indonesian people would change their main food source and switch to other local foods so that the contents of people's plates were not only rice. "Why do we have to throw away dividends of 120 to 150 million dollars, we use it every year to buy rice from abroad? If we use 150 million dollars for development, that would be great, ”said Soekarno.

Unfortunately, Soekarno's spirit did not continue. Uniformity of food became the main agenda of the New Order government through self-sufficiency in rice, which was hailed as an obsession with power. The same thing continued until the era of the latest order in the style of Indonesia's 7th President, Joko Widodo (Jokowi). The situation is relatively unchanged. In fact, the number of paddy fields for planting rice is increasing, even touching the eastern regions of the archipelago: Maluku and Papua.

Notes and travel

There is something unfortunate about this step. This is because Maluku and Papua actually have a wealth of other main food sources: sago. In the current era, the position of sago as the main food source has been shifted. This condition is clearly different from thousands of years ago when sago was still the prima donna of the staple food in the archipelago. From Sabang to Merauke.

Quoted from Ahmad Arif in his book entitled Sago Papua for the World, he revealed that the presence of sago in the middle of people's lives has been going on since the 13th century. These notes can be obtained from the story of Marco Polo's famous exploration of the archipelago. Marco Polo described that sago has an important role as a source of food for the community, apart from rice.

“You have to know that they have a kind of tree which has a thin bark and inside there is flour which is very good for eating. And I further tell you that Mr. Marco Polo has tried this flour and made bread (which is) very good to eat, "it is written.

Cutting and packaging dry sago (Commons Wikimedia)

Even so, other records mention the existence of sago as an archipelago food that began to be echoed in the 7th century, when the Sriwijaya Kingdom in North Sumatra was at its heyday. Through the Talang Tuo inscription which contains the narrative of King Sriwijaya, it is told that at that time a garden was built. In it, various trees, ranging from coconut, areca nut, bamboo, sugar palm, to sago are planted.

After that, in 1741, German Botanical expert Rumphius had the most detailed record of the sago case in Ambon. Through his rare book, Herbarium Amboinense, a discussion that not only covers sago is written, but also provides insight into the use of marijuana. The book, which has six children in the series, is even used as a basis for encouraging the government to use the cannabis plant for medical purposes.

However, the spread of sago in eastern Indonesia - Maluku and Papua - can be seen from the masterpiece of a British naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace, who recorded his travels to the archipelago in a book entitled The Malay Archipelago (1869). The book contains many stories of his journey across the archipelago from Kalimantan to Papua in order to find out the richness of flora and fauna.

Sago palm (Commons Wikimedia)

In fact, Wallace did not forget to reveal how happy he was to be able to see first hand the process of making sago and obtain interesting data about sago as the staple food to support food security for the people in Maluku and Papua at that time. "The energy needed to manage sago is not that great," he wrote.

"Making raw sago from one tree takes five days and is done by two people. Furthermore, processing raw sago into cakes also takes five days and is done by two people. If so, within a hundred days, a person can produce one ration of food. people for one year, ”connected.

Regarding his experience of trying sago cake, Alfred also wrote: Sago cake is my daily food as a substitute for bread (while in Eastern Indonesia). I enjoy it with a cup of coffee. Boiled sago cake will become a pudding or soup that can replace the rice that sometimes has to be obtained from the east.

Through Wallace's exploration, a fact is implied that sago is no longer considered a staple food, but an alternative food to replace rice. To legitimize his opinion, notes from the Governor General of the Dutch East Indies in 1811-1815, Thomas Stamford Raffles, can be used as a reference. Of a total of more than a thousand pages of his book, The History of Java, regarding sago only gets a small part in his book. Outnumbered with topics related to rice.

"Aren trees that grow a lot in Java can produce a kind of flour, such as sago flour in the eastern islands. When the food supply decreases, many palm trees are cut down for flour. The juice of the fruit can be made into brown sugar which is usually enjoyed by the residents. "Liquor or tuwak made from sugar palm tastes better than other trees," said Raffles. "

He also shared a lengthy explanation regarding how sago flour is made. He also gave the fact that at that time there were so few sago trees. However, this is deemed inaccurate, because now the facts speak that Indonesia already has the title of being the largest sago granary in the world. Ironically, this number does not make Indonesia the market leader in the world export market.

Sago is present in Mustika Rasa

Not only architectural projects were Soekarno's focus in the early phases of his reign. Soekarno also launched a project involving his wife, Hartini, in order to collect 1,600 traditional food recipes from all over the archipelago through a book entitled Mustika Rasa in 1967.

From a total of 1,600 food recipes, there are at least 30 recipes that make sago a basic ingredient, ranging from empek-empek, hagau, lime, sinore, norohombi, papeda, and others. Presumably, that is evidence of the seriousness of the narrative of independence starting from the tongue echoed by Soekarno. Not only that. In the book, Soekarno helped insert a message introducing other food alternatives besides rice.

This is evidenced by his remarks in this book. Bung Karno said: The radical revolutionary decision changed the people's menu from merely rice to rice, corn, tubers, and others. The food ingredients that are grown in Indonesia are added with fish and meat.

The answer to food security

Although the staple food has been uniformed with rice, over time, the growing population rate has made this country also import rice to meet national food. If not done, then hunger will be present everywhere.

The reason for the change in people's staple food from sago to rice was also explained by Walhi's Food, Water and Essential Ecosystems Campaign Manager, Wahyu Perdana to VOI some time ago. He revealed that at that time it was the policy makers who were responsible for the many influencing people to change their staple food from sago to rice.

"First, depart from the mindset of policy makers. In ancient times the staple food was rice. Second, there is a phase of the policy taken by the government, consciously or unconsciously, under the conscious awareness of the public it is being agreed upon. So, for example, there is an ancient sway. Eating sago has glue, so the cool staple food is rice, ”said Wahyu.

Wahyu also added that "food as rice is present because of the practice stipulation of the land, which is widely opened is rice. In practice, the determination of these programs has an impact on food spatial planning as it relates to the ecosystem. "

For that, if you want to restore your beautiful memory regarding other food sources besides rice. So sago can be encouraged as an answer to the fulfillment of the national food stock. The proof is, if rice depends on the weather and season, then it is different from sago which does not depend on the season at all.

Mentawai people process sago (Commons Wikimedia)

In addition, sago also has the flexibility to use and also has a lot of nutritional content, both of which make it a processed product as well as various other functions such as raw materials for sugar and bioethanol. Even sago for the Papuan people is more than that. The traditional leader of Kampung Saga, Matemani District, Sorong Regency, Yosua Muguratu revealed the close connection between sago and community life in Papua.

"Sago is like mother to Papuan people. Not only as a source of food, sago is also an inseparable part of their culture. If Papuans leave sago, they will lose their roots," he wrote.