Papua village places food hopes in sago

Markus Makur, The Jakarta Post, Timika | Thu, 09/16/2010 10:04 AM

A sago planting program will ensure that the Kamaro people of Nayaro village, Mimika, Papua, can eat for the next ten years, a local leader says.

PT Freeport Indonesia, the Catholic Diocese of Timika and Manokwari’s Papua State University (Unipa) launched the program in 1998 to guarantee the community’s food security.

The program involved the cultivation of 8,520 prime sago tree seedlings between 2008 and 2009.

“Thanks to the program, we are confident that the people of Nayaro will not suffer from food shortages in the future,” Timika diocese chief Monsignor John Philip Saklil Pr. said recently.

Saklil said superior sago seedlings had been imported from Sentani, Jayapura, and planted on a 85 hectares of a 124-hectare farm that was collectively owned by 141 Nayaro village families. Each family received a plot of 60 sago trees.

Planting was completed in May 2009 and residents have since tended to the trees, which could be harvested after eight to 10 years.

“I hope PT Freeport’s Social and Local Outreach Development department will help the people in Nayaro to care for the sago trees so they can be harvested,” Saklil said.

Some of the trees now top 4 meters. Mature sago trees can yield up to 1.5 tons of flour.

“If a single tree could yield up to 1.5 tons of flour, then it could provide food to many people,” Saklil said.

“The food crisis could be overcome in the future,” he added.

Nayaro village’s sago trees are a pilot project for other villages along the southern coast of Mimika, he said, adding that residents were taught how to make sago flour into cakes, noodles and meatballs.

Unipa rector Yan Pieter Karafir said the province has 1.2 million hectares of sago plantations, 90 percent of the national total.