JAKARTA - The Ministry of Industry (Kemenperin) is focused on continuing to develop porang as a commodity that has high economic potential by downstreaming.
Therefore, downstreaming policies need to be implemented to increase the added value of porang in the country through the use of technology according to President Joko Widodo's direction.
"Porang's processed products have promising export markets, such as glukomanan flour, porang rice, and so on. Moreover, the price of porang in the export market is currently increasing," said Director General of Agro Industry at the Ministry of Industry, Putu Juli Ardika, during the Discussion Group Forum (FGD) for the Development of Porang Plant-Based Processing Industry, in Jakarta, Thursday, December 15.
In this FGD, the Ministry of Industry reports on several developments that have been achieved in efforts to develop the porang processing industry.
"In terms of production, it has increased quite a bit, including investment in this sector is starting to increase. So, this industry is growing and its production capabilities have arrived in glukomanan flour products," said Putu.
In order to further optimize the downstream policy of the agro sector, Putu emphasized that his party is proactive in cooperating with various parties and related stakeholders.
"Through this collaboration, we want to find comprehensive solutions, especially optimizing the absorption of porang in the country. In addition, it is hoped that it can become an embryo in the formation of an ecosystem or forum for the development of an innovative and competitive porang processing industry," he said.
Putu added that porang plant cultivation is fairly easy and cheap because it does not require a lot of special treatment.
"Porang planting is easy to grow in various soil conditions, even in critical lands, so if further developed in the downstream sector in Indonesia, it should not have significant obstacles in terms of fulfilling raw materials," he explained.
Based on data from the Ministry of Agriculture, the source of raw materials for porang plants is spread across various regions in Indonesia, such as in East Nusa Tenggara Province, West Nusa Tenggara, East Java, Central Java, West Java, Bali, and several other areas, with an estimated total area of 47,641 hectares.
"So if one hectare of land produces 15 tons, the estimated porang production is approximately 714,000 tons in one year," said Putu.
The benefits of porang, especially its tubers, can be used for raw materials for making conjugate flour or glukomanan flour.
"Porang tubers have the potential to have high economic value because they contain good glucomannan for health, so they are prospective to be used as raw materials for the food industry," explained Putu.
Some food products that contain porang preparations, including jelly powder, mi shirataki, shirataki rice, konaku, sausages, meatballs, meatball products, chocolate, and ice cream.
"This economic potential, if managed properly and accompanied by synergies between various parties, will provide benefits, both for farmers as providers of raw materials, as well as industries as absorbers of raw materials to be processed further," said Putu.
The Ministry of Industry has launched targets for downstreaming of this porang commodity, especially for the 2021-2027 period.
For the short-term target, the Ministry of Industry will maintain the porang chip export market and start developing glukomanan flour products, as well as seek injection of porang processing technology.
Meanwhile, medium-term targets, mastery of technology and substitution of imports of flour products, as well as developing a potential glucomannan flour user industry. Meanwhile, in the long term, it is to implement the results of research and development of potential industrial sectors made from raw materials or auxiliary materials for gluomanan flour.
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