Maluku Province Ready to Produce Rice Seeds to Handle Stunting

Ambon, MINA – Indonesian Ministry of Agriculture played a role in reducing the stunting rate especially in Maluku Province through the intervention of food supply activities in this case rice which contains high Zn elements.

The data from Maluku Provincial Agriculture Office noted that through state budget support in the 2020 Budget Year, 450 hectares of biofertified rice will be developed in Central Maluku Regency.

“The development of biofertified rice, in this case IR Inpari Nutri Zinc variety, begins with the provision of 11.25 tons of seeds by the Directorate General of Food Crops. So Maluku is ready to handle stunting, one of them through developing rice seed production,” said Head of BPSBB Maluku Province, Dahlia Syahrudin in Ambon on Tuesday, in a press release.

Dahlia explained that there are 120 seed-breeders who are actually able to provide seeds for the needs of development programs and increasing food crop production including the development of biofertified rice.

“In order for seeds to be available, source seeds and breeding should be planned four months before the next planting season,” she said.

Furthermore, Dahlia claimed to have coordinated with the Maluku Agricultural Technology Research Institute (BPTP) as an element of the Ministry of Research and Development Agency in the regions to prepare the rice seed needs. Namely, by breeding four hectares, each in Central Maluku Regency covering three hectares and East Seram Regency covering one hectare.

“These two regencies were chosen not only because of the high stunting rate in the area, but also because of the land suitability and willingness of breeders,” she explained.

Separately, Director of Cereals Directorate General of Food Crops, Ministry of Agriculture, Bambang Sugiharto said that in line with the direction of the Minister of Agriculture Syahrul Yasin Limpo to focus on providing food for food insecure areas, biofortification rice development activities will be carried out in districts with the highest stunting prevalence.

The nine provinces are Riau, Lampung, West Java, Central Java, West Kalimantan, NTB, Gorontalo, Maluku and Papua.

“In accordance with the direction of the Director General of Food Crops Kelvin that the Ministry of Agriculture needs to pay attention to the availability of source seeds, especially until now there is only one rice variety available to support the reduction in stunting, namely Inpari IR Nutri Zinc variety,” he said.

“Following up on this, we conducted a workshop on the supply and utilization of biofortified rice seeds. The aim is to be able to connect between seed sources, seed breeding and development areas,” continued Bambang. (T/RE1)

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)