South Pacific Studies Vol.34, No.2, 201499

Socio-Economic Factors That Have Influenced
the Decline of Sago Consumption in Small Islands:
A Case in Rural Maluku, Indonesia
GIRSANG Wardis
Faculty of Agriculture, Pattimura University
Jl M. Putuhena Kampus, Poka, Ambon, 97233 Indonesia
E-mail: girsangwardis@yahoo.com

Abstract
Even though the cost of rice tends to increase due to uncertain production, unpredictable climatechange, water shortage and limited productive rice land, around 95% of Indonesian people still depend on
rice as a staple food. In Maluku Province, there are around 52,000 ha of sago forest, and potentially able
to produce carbohydrate of more than 268 kg/capita/year for 1.55 million of the Maluku population. Sago
and other local foods were the main staple food for the local community. However, sago consumption has
decreased considerably whilst rice consumption has increased significantly in the last decade. The objectivesof this study were to identify the potential of sago production and socio-economic factors to influence thedecline of sago consumption. Data was collected from 75 farmer households in three sago villages by using
mix methods including interviews, field observation and focus group discussion. Research results showthat household expenditure for sago consumption was 5.4%, 2.4% and 0.8% in selected villages, whilst
rice consumption increased up to 15.8%, 20.8% and 38.6% respectively in the same villages. The declineof sago consumption relates to national rice policies and the social and cultural perception of sago. Thissuggests that a food security should be revitalized, otherwise dependency on imported rice will become athreat to regional food security sustainability in the small islands of Maluku.
Key words: food security, household expenditure, local food, rice, Seram

Introduction
The Indonesian population is 237 million, 95% of which consumes rice as astaple food. Therefore, rice is a political and strategic commodity where price, accessand availability are controlled by the government. Rice influences on poverty because
when the price of rice increases by 10% then it will reduce the purchase parity powerof poor urban and rural households to around 8.6% and 2.7% respectively (A RIFIN
Received: 7 October, 2013
Accepted: 21 December, 2013

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South Pacific Studies Vol.34, No.2, 20142008). Moreover, rice planter households are only 25% of total farmers in Indonesia
and most of the rural population are rice consumers, thus a higher rice price will harm
farmers and poor people both in rural and urban areas (MCCULLOCH 2008). To reduce
dependency and its threat to regional food security, it is pivotal to develop non-rice
staple food based on local resources.
Sago palm (Metroxylon spp.) is one of the most important local and natural foodcrops in Maluku, beside tuber, root crops and peanuts. According to BPS (2012), theland area of sago in Maluku is estimated around 52,000 ha. This is about 4% of 1.3
million ha of the total sago land area in Indonesia (Table 1). The potential productionthat can be achieved is around 416,000 tons/year or 268 kg/capita/year for the Maluku
population of 1.55 million. Trees of sago palm are environmental friendly crops
and able to provide carbohydrate for an adult for a year, but they are not yet utilized
optimally (FLACH 1997). This means Maluku has a potential of sago food stock thatmight be developed as the basis for food security in the long term.
Based on its historical background in villages in Maluku, the sago palm has
an important role to support cultural activities, to provide staple food for household
members, to provide materials for building houses (roof, wall and ceiling) and bridges,
as well as to maintain water conservation (GIRSANG et al. 2006, BINTORO et al. 2010).
During the era of colonialism, local people called sago a ‘food security during thedifficult times’ because dry sago starch can be kept as food stock for months in bamboo
when laid down into the river.
Based on a cultural perspective in Maluku, sago palm clusters are the symbolof cultural life and social organization such as living in groups, sharing energy andleadership regeneration. Among the clusters the highest plant symbolized the leaderof the group, to protect, to share existing energy and to manage younger plants togrow together. Based on a local farmer’s knowledge, older plants that have stopped
producing starch should be substituted by the next sago plant generation, otherwise
Table 1. The area of sago by provinces in Indonesia (sources: BINTORO 1999, JONG andWIDJOYO 2007).
RegionArea of sago (ha)Area of sago (%)

Papua
Maluku1,113,330
52,95788.628
4.216

Riau

36,822

2.931

North Sulawesi

22,523

1.793

South Sulawesi

12,2090.972

Southeast Sulawesi

11,1380.887West Sumatera

5,000

0.398

West Kalimantan

1,576

0.125

West Java

285

0.023

Lampung

270

0.021

72
1,256,181

0.006
100.000

Jambi
Indonesia (total)

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101

it will become the poisonous plant to the whole cluster (GIRSANG et al. 2006). It
means that there is a time of leadership regeneration where the old leader hands overleadership to the youth otherwise the old leader will become poisonous to the other.
In general, a sago palm forest was pivotal as a staple food, an environmentallyfriendly crop and a cultural symbol. Nowadays, sago forests are neglected and theconsumption of sago and other local food has decreased considerably in Maluku, whilst
the consumption of imported rice has increased significantly. This situation is probably
dealing with preference, the perceived social value of sago and sago availability(IMANUDDIN 2007). The issue of the increase of imported rice consumption over local
foods is also found in small islands in the Federated State of Micronesia because rice
is more delicious and simple to prepare (YAMAMOTO 2013). The choice of local people
to consume more expensive rice rather than cheaper and locally available non-rice isquestionable. Therefore, the objectives of this paper are to focus on identifying thepotential of sago and finding out the main factors that influence the decline of sago
consumption in Maluku.

Materials and Methods
Research sites were determined and selected at three sago villages in three
sub districts in the west of Seram District (Fig. 1). These villages are Luhu, Eti
and Hatusua. Luhu village is called Huamual Belakang, meaning that the location
is isolated from the center of the district city. Eti village is quite close and easy toaccess to the district city, whereas Hatusua village is close to the capital of Maluku
Province. These sago villages were selected purposively based on the assumption

Fig. 1. Map of research sites (Luhu, Eti and Hatusua) in Western Seram, Maluku Province.

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that consumption of sago in these villages was higher than that in the other non-sago
villages.
The number of respondents selected was 25 households per village, or of
75 households in these three coastal villages. The population of Eti and Hatusua
consists of 162 and 290 households respectively with the size of family around four
members. The main work of people in both Eti and Hatusua is farming; that is 57%
and 64% respectively. Luhu has around 300 households and around 72% of themwork as farmers, followed by trade and services (16%) and civil servants (12%). Eachhousehold in average has five family members consisting of parents and three children.
Respondents were selected randomly from the total of households in each village.
Primary data was collected from farmer households by using in-depth interview
method, which is combined with participatory observation and focus group discussion.
Secondary data was gathered from local government offices and relevant researchdocuments. Data was analyzed based on household expenditure and correlation of riceand sago consumption variables.

Results and Discussions
The potential of sago palm tree is important for the future food security: Why?
The total area of sago forest and plantation in Indonesia is between 1.3-1.5 million ha
and it can produce flour up to 25 tons/ha/year without the need to replant. This area ofsago potential is 50% of the potential sago area in the world and 90% of Indonesia’ssago area is found in Papua and West Papua (JONG and WIDJOYO 2007). This suggeststhat Indonesia can be made as the frontier of the sago processing industry and provide
the future basis for sustainable food security in Indonesia and the world (BINTORO
1999). These sago palm areas spread around 12 provinces, where 89% of the area islocated in Papua and West Papua, then followed by 4% in Maluku, 3% in Riau and 2%
in North Sulawesi. The rest of sago area (3%) is found in the other seven provinces(Table 1).
Most of the sago land areas in Indonesia are categorized as sago palm forest,
except for Riau Province where there are at least 60 semi-mechanical sago processing
industries yielding 50-300 tons/month (JONG and WIDJOYO 2007). “Sago forest” refers
to the natural sago forest endowment without intensive external input production and
it is produced to fulfill basic food needs. Conversely, sago plantation uses external
input production technology to improve soil, and fertilizer to improve productivity
and industry market orientation. Besides, sago plantation uses in modern processing
product technology in order to have a competitive advantage in local and national
markets.
The sago area in Maluku is estimated by many researchers and institutions as
32,000 ha (A LFONS and B USTAMAN 2005), 42,000 ha (J ONG and W IDJOYO 2007),
51,646 ha (BPS 2011) and up to 60,000 ha (BINTORO 2011). In average, it is estimatedGIRSANG: Socio-Economic Factors That Have Influenced the Decline of Sago Consumption in Small Islands

103

Table 2. The area of sago forest and production of dry sago starch by districts in
Maluku Province (source: BPS 2012).
District
Eastern Seram
Western Seram
Central Maluku
Buru
South Buru
Aru
Ambon
Southwest Maluku
Total

Area of sago forest
ha%
36,075
69.85
6,338
12.27
5,004
9.69
1,312
2.54
1,287
2.49
1,130
2.19
255
0.49
245
0.47
51,646100.00

Production of dry sago
starch (ton/year)
288,600
50,70440,032
10,496
10,296
9,040
2,040
1,960
413,168

to produce around 416,000 tons of dry sago flour or about 268 kg/capita/year for the
Maluku population of 1.55 million. If carbohydrate needs are about 180 kg/capita/year,
it means that carbohydrate from sago in Maluku provides around 1.5 fold higher thanthe per capita average carbohydrate need.
According to BPS (2011), the area of sago forest in Maluku was 51,646 ha and it
spreads out in eight districts. The highest sago forest location is found in Eastern Seram(69.85%), followed by 12.27% in Western Seram and 9.69% in Central Seram (Central
Maluku District), whilst the rest (8%) is found in the other five districts (Table 2).
Thus, sago plantation can be developed in these three districts in Seram Island, whereas
the other islands can be made as supporting regions for sago development.
There are several reasons in terms of socio-economic and environmental benefits
for sago Development in Seram Island, which is the first biggest island beside Buru
Island in Maluku. First, sago palm grows naturally without external input. This is a low
cost of staple food production based on local natural resources. In term of staple food,
local people make ‘papeda’ food, a combination between sago starch, marine fish,
spices and vegetables. Sago is the source of carbohydrate, whilst fish is the source ofprotein. The demand for local sago products increase concurrently during the marine
fish season (April to October). The main problem is low competitiveness of sago
products in Maluku Province (GIRSANG and PAPILAYA 2009).
Second, the central government policy is to expand and create new wetland rice
in Maluku, particularly in the Seram and Buru islands. This policy is based on thenationally low-price rice policy. In fact, the main constraint of agricultural development
in small islands is the lack of water and hilly land areas, except for sago forest thatconserve water in the flat land. This implies that environmental change will occur insmall islands because rice needs a lot of water, i.e. around 5,000 L to produce one kg of
rice (WELIRANG 2011), and releases methane into the air and uses chemical fertilizers
as well as pesticides.
Third, compared to the rice crops, sago crop clusters are environmental friendly
because they conserve soil and water, act as a buffer zone for flood and sea water
intrusion, and have the capability of self-regeneration. Sago palm also produces around104

South Pacific Studies Vol.34, No.2, 2014

8,000-10,000 L/ha/year of bio-ethanol, as well as reduces global warming throughproducing 79.52 tons/ha of O2 and absorbing of 0.3% of CO2 for each 1 million ha ofsago forest (ISHIZAKI 1997, AWG- ADENI et al. 2010).
Dealing with food security in the long term, it takes 10 years to harvest sago, but
because sago live in clusters without replanting, and each cluster consists of 4-5 sago
trees, one tree from each cluster can be harvested every two years (FLACH 1997). One
sago tree can produce around 200 kg of dry sago flour and if an adult needs around 180
kg of carbohydrate per year (YAMAMOTO 2011), then about four sago trees are enoughto support the carbohydrate needs of a family of five per year. Moreover, wetland rice
(paddy) needs high and expensive input production costs, is sensitive and vulnerable
to pests, disease and climate change. On the contrary, sago trees need low input
production costs and are not vulnerable to climate change, pests or disease. Therefore,sago is suggested as the future food security which is based on tree food plant starch(AMIEN 2011).
Household expenditure on sago and rice
The status of sago forest ownership in Maluku can be divided into three types.
The first is called village or communal sago forest and is controlled by the head of
the village and his/her staff. People can harvest sago in the sago forest after getting
permission from village local authorities. Sago harvesters will give around 10% of
their total sago starch harvest to village authorities. The second is called ‘Dati’ landsago forest or family land that is given by ancestors and then owned by a family group.
Each household in the family group has a right to harvest all kinds of plants, including
sago, on the family group land. The third is called private sago forest land and belongs
to an individual. In this case the owner of sago forest land are local people of Maluku,
but most sago harvesters are not local people but Buton people who originally camefrom Southeast Sulawesi and have lived in Maluku for hundreds of years. There is adifference between sago farmers and sago harvesters. Sago farmers are a family who
have sago forest land and harvest sago for both consumption and income improvement.
Sago harvesters are a group of people (2-4 people) who do not have sago forest land
and work together to buy and harvest sago palm trees. Buton people have a right to use
the land, but have no right to buy and occupy village communal land, including sago
forest land. Therefore, harvesters will buy each tree from the owner of sago forest land
between IDR 100,000 (USD 10) and IDR 200,000 (USD 20) per tree depending on
the size of the sago tree. Research results showed that the number of sago harvesters
in sago villages was less than 5% of the total number of farmers. The main reason wasthat to harvest sago requires extra hard work, is time consuming, and the owner of asago forest will ask a higher price for sago palm trees and the market for sago starch is
uncertain. This implies that sago is an underutilized food because the potential of sago
starch in the sago forest in Maluku is not used optimally.
In the past, a harvester and an owner of sago forest shared the products where
the owner received 1/3 (33.3%) of each kg of harvested sago starch. In the last five

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105

years, owners have preferred to be paid in cash where the price of a sago tree is IDR
75,000 (USD 7.5) to IDR 150,000 (USD 15). Besides the higher price of raw material(sago tree), harvesters felt that it took a lot of time, energy and hard work to cut off
trees as well as to process and to transport heavy wet sago flour from the forest into theuncertain and limited local market. Generally, the age of most rural people who work
as farmers is more than 40 years old. Local educated young people avoid working in
agriculture and thus they prefer to work as civil servants, otherwise they choose towork as wood cutters, in wood processing, making alcohol, which is called ‘sopi’ andmade from fermented coconut palm, or work in non-farming sector activities such as
road building or motor cycle driving, which is referred to as ‘ojeg’ driving.
Consequently, each household has multiple occupations both from farm and nonfarm activities to improve income generation. Household expenditure was also different
between households in the same village and between villages. The average household
expenditure (food and non-food) was around IDR 17.746 million/year (USD 1,775)
in Luhu, followed by IDR 12.162 million/year in Eti, and IDR 11.672 million/year in
Hatusua (Table 3). The average expenditure for food and non-food was IDR 7.989 andIDR 5.871 million/year with a standard error around IDR 3.23 million. The percentageof food expenditure in Eti and Luhu was 82.7% and 54.6% respectively of total
household expenditure, whilst household expenditure in Hatusua was only 36.2% (Table 3).
In general, the pattern of poor household expenditure in rural Indonesia and Maluku isthat the total food expenditure is higher than that of non-food expenditure. This can befound in Eti and Luhu where household expenditure for food was higher than that of
non-food expenditure. Different from Eti and Luhu, the total household expenditure in
Hatusua was lower than that of Luhu and Eti. However, household expenditure for foodin Hatusua was also lower than that of non-food expenditure. Moreover, household
expenditure for saving in Hatusua was higher than that of the other two villages (Figs.
2&3&4). This indicated that households in Hatusua village preferred to consume lesstotal energy which can be acquired from sago, cassava and other tubers (Table 4),
and then used money for non-food expenditure. In terms of saving, most households
in rural areas of Maluku do not have savings in banks because most of the banks arefound in the capital of districts and some are found at the capital of sub-districts. In thiscase, people in Hatusua have a higher percentage of household expenditure for savings
because they have better access to the banks at the capital of the sub-district. Next, thepercentage of household expenditure for saving was found to be around 5.37% of thetotal non-food expenditure in Hatusua, as sourced from 10% of respondents who havea higher household income (Fig. 4). Most of them were civil servants. Therefore, it
can be argued that the higher household expenditure for savings in Hatusua occurredalso because the gap of household expenditure or income in Hatusua was higher thanthat of the other two villages (GIRSANG 2009). The objectives of saving in Hatusua
were to provide money for future education of children as well as cultural and religious
activities.
Table 4 shows that rice, sago, cassava and other tubers are the main source of106South Pacific Studies Vol.34, No.2, 2014

Table 3. T he average of household expenditure for food and non-food in Eti, Luhu andHatusua, 2011.
Food
IDR/year
10,058,000
9,689,000
4,225,000
7,989,000

Householdexpenditure
Eti
Luhu
Hatusua
Average

%
82.7
54.6
36.2
57.6

Non-food
IDR/year%
2,104,000
17.3
8,057,000
45.4
7,447,000
63.8
5,871,000
42.4

Total
IDR/year
12,162,000
17,746,000
11,672,000
13,860,000

%
100
100
100
100

Table 4. Consumption of rice, sago, cassava and other tubers and estimated energy intakes in Eti, Luhu andHatusua, 2011.

Eti
Luhu

Food consumption(Kg/household/day)Cassava and
Rice
Sago
other tubers
1.16
0.33
0.12
0.85
0.73
0.20

Hatusua
Average

0.91
0.97

0.04
0.37

0.02
0.11

855.4
914.9

35.7
327.3

7.7
40.3

898.8
1,282.5(66.9%)(25.5%)(7.6%)(71.3%)(25.5%)(3.1%)(100%)

Food types

Rice1,090.4
799.0

Energy(Kcal/capita/day)Cassava andSagoother tubers
294.5
46.2
651.5
67.0

1,431.1
1,517.5

Total

Note: Each household consists of four people. It is assumed 376 Kcal/100 gram of rice, 357 Kcal/100 gramof sago flour and 154 Kcal/100 gram of cassava (GARDJITO et al. 2013).

Fig. 2. Household expenditure for food and non-food in Eti.

GIRSANG: Socio-Economic Factors That Have Influenced the Decline of Sago Consumption in Small Islands

Fig. 3. Household expenditure for food and non-food in Luhu.

Fig. 4. Household expenditure for food and non-food in Hatusua.

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South Pacific Studies Vol.34, No.2, 2014

energy. It can be argued that rice has become the main staple food of the household.
The range of rice consumption (kg/household/day) was 1.16 in Eti, 0.85 in Luhu and0.91 in Hatusua. Besides, the range of sago consumption (kg/household/day) was
between 0.04 in Hatusua, then 0.33 in Eti, and then up to 0.73 in Luhu. This meansthat rice consumption was 3.52 times higher than that of sago consumption in Eti,
1.16 times higher in Luhu, but it was almost 22.75 times higher than that of sago
consumption in Hatusua. The standard calorie content of rice is calculated about 367
Kcal/100 gram of rice, whilst the calorie of sago and cassava is 357 Kcal/100 gramof sago starch and 154 Kcal/100 gram of cassava flour respectively (GARDJITO et al.
2013). Thus, the total consumption of calories (Kcal/cap/day) in each village was
1431.1 in Eti, 1517.5 in Luhu and 898.8 in Hatusua. On average, 71.34% of the energy
source was taken from rice and the rest was obtained from sago (25.52%) and cassava(3.14%).
In fact, the potential of sago starch in the sago forest is abundant as the source of
staple food in Maluku. However, household expenditure for sago consumption was low
among sago villages, from 0.8% of total food consumption value in Hatusua, followedby 2.4% in Eti, and up to 5.4% in Luhu village. On the contrary, the percentage ofhousehold expenditure for rice was higher than that of sago consumption with a range
between 16% in Luhu and 30% in Eti.
Food price was a critical point for household when deciding the type of food to
consume. In this case, most rural people consume rice because its price is subsidized by
the central government. The normal price of good rice in the market was around IDR
10,000/kg (USD 1/kg), but the central government subsidized the price of rice up to
80% so that its cost for the households was around IDR 2,000/kg. In fact, rice subsidy
was allocated by village leaders to all rural households and failed to address the poor
target groups. Therefore, each household receives around 5 kg/month. This amount ofrice is too small to fulfill nutritional needs of four household members, although riceconsumption has changed the local food habit pattern with rice being the preferred foodbecause of its market price.
Even though the price of rice has tended to increase in the past decade, it seems
that people prefer to buy and consume rice rather than sago and other local foods.
The same pattern occurs also for fish as the main source of protein. Besides foodexpenditure, household expenditure is allocated for non-foods such as education,transportation, communication, social cultural activities, and cigarettes. The cost of
education is more expensive at senior high school and university. Other non-food
expenditures were kerosene, electricity, clothes as well as soap and detergent. Healthwas pivotal, but it was the last priority for household expenditure as they have limitedaccess and ability to cover the cost of health services (Figs. 2&3&4).
Sago starch potential in Maluku is estimated around 268 kg/capita/year with 2,621
Kcal/capita/day for 1,550,000 people in Maluku. In fact, the average sago consumption
among households in sago villages was around 1,282.5 Kcal/capita/day or 48.93%. The
rest is around 1,338.8 Kcal/capita/day (51.07%). It can be argued that 51.07% of sago

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109

starch in the sago forests in Maluku is unexploited. In Indonesia, sago exploitation
is lower that is estimated and up to 2.85% of its total potential (BINTORO 1999). Thisimplies that sago starch is still an underutilized food and needs to be used optimally as
the base of local food security in small islands in the future. Based on field observation,
sago consumption is higher among people who live in remote areas such as Luhu andEti than sago consumption among people who live in regions that have easy access totransportation and communication like Hatusua. Different from Luhu and Eti where
sago forests are nearby the village, sago forests around Hatusua have been cut and soldto the Javanese for resettlement. Therefore, the sago forest location is further from
Hatusua. In Hatusua, it is easier for people to buy rice with a subsidy as a staple foodthan for people in Luhu and Eti. Besides, the youth prefer to consume rice rather thansago food products because they perceived that rice is more prestigious, easier to cook
and a nutritious food. In addition, harvesting sago by using traditional technology istime consuming and ineffective.
Factors influencing sago consumption
The important relationships that explain sago consumption are household
expenditure for rice and sago, household income, and sago production. Household
expenditure for rice in Hatusua, Eti and Luhu was 39%, 21% and 16% respectively,
whilst household expenditure for sago consumption in the same village was almost 1%
in Hatusua and followed by 2% in Eti and 5% in Luhu. This indicated that the increaseof rice consumption was followed by the decrease of sago consumption.
It can be argued that the reason for the decline of sago consumption is the “ricebias policy” and unclear sago forest responsibility at national and local levels. Basedon historical perspective, food security in the new order government of Indonesia was
the key factor to create social and political stability. Therefore, the central government
has developed a green revolution since the 1960s in order to achieve a paddy
production target and self-sufficiency in food in the 1980s. Social political stability
can be achieved through creating low price rice and low wage labor. In Maluku, therice policy was integrated in part of the national transmigration program in 1954/1955,
and continued between the 1970s and 1990s. In the national transmigration programin Maluku, sago and wetland rice was a trade-off decision between central and local
government. In fact, around 16,500 ha of sago forest was changed for irrigated rice
crops in the Seram and Buru islands.
This rice policy was continued by the central government through the “rice forthe poor” policy from the 2000s. At this moment, the lowest price of rice in the local
market was IDR 8,000/kg. If the central government stated that the price of “rice forthe poor” was determined IDR 1,800/kg, therefore the government rice subsidy forrice was probably around IDR 6,200/kg. This means that government rice subsidy
caused an easier access to all rural and urban people to consume low price rice. The
average world rice consumption was 65 kg/capita/year, whilst consumption of ricein Indonesia has increased to 110 kg/capita/year (NATIONAL FOOD SECURITY BOARD

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South Pacific Studies Vol.34, No.2, 20142011). The other data showed that rice consumption has increased to 139 kg/capita/
year in 2011 (SUSWONO 2011). In Maluku, particularly, the local government statedthat rice consumption should be maintained at around 80 kg/capita/year. In fact, riceconsumption in Maluku has increased from 150,000 tons in 2011 to 155,000 tons in2012 or 100-110 kg/capita/year. This indicated that rice consumption tends to increasein Maluku. Different from Maluku, rice consumption has decreased gradually at thesame time both at national and world levels (Fig. 5).
To anticipate the high demand of rice consumption, the central government policy
has a target to achieve 10 million tons of rice surplus in 2014. At the same time, thegovernment reduces rice consumption by 1.5%/year, intensifies rice cultivation, selects
high yield rice varieties, as well as extending and creating new wetland rice fields. The
other central government policy was based on presidential Regulation No 22/2009
about the acceleration of diversification and consumption of local food. Based on thelast perspective, the central government solution to food security is a trade-off between
wetland rice and local food.
Based on land availability and suitability, there are 2.3 million ha of agriculturalland in Maluku that consist of 57% of plantation crops, 34% of dry land food crops(774,211 ha) and 57,120 ha (3%) for wetland paddy crops (BPS 2012). However, tosupport the 10 million tons of rice surplus in 2014, the Maluku Provincial Agriculture
Agency and Ministry of Agriculture planned to extend and create around 10,000 haof new irrigated rice fields in 2011/2012 in Seram Island. This ambitious target failed,
not because of limited budget but the problem of land availability, availability of semiskilled and skilled labor, sago forest land conversion, and communal land status. The
other problems are that flat land for the wetland rice is very limited, local skilled labor
is limited, and there are water availability and land status issues. In this case, it wasFig. 5. Rice consumption in Maluku, Indonesia, and World, 2004-2012.

GIRSANG: Socio-Economic Factors That Have Influenced the Decline of Sago Consumption in Small Islands

111

Fig. 6. Correlation between household expenditure and income, sago production and consumption, tuber
consumption, education and rice consumption (**Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level [2-tailed];*Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level [2-tailed]).

questioned why the central government preferred to extend, create and develop wetland
paddy crops rather than local dry land food crops and sago forest, which are moreavailable and suitable in Maluku Province.
The second reason for the decline of sago consumption is due to a government
policy on sago industry development in Maluku. Government intervention on sago has
been varried, such as surveys, seminars, symposia and provincial government rules.
Local government has formed the Sago Research and Development Agency, and Sago
Pilot Project in Tawiri and Tulehu villages. In 2009, the local government promoted
the Governor Regulation on Sago Palm in Maluku. Then, the Food Security Agency
developed the concept of sago cluster industry in Maluku. The main problem was
the lack of an integrated concept and action plan from the government, the owners ofsago forest, sago harvester groups, sago traders, as well as sago home industries. This
problem becomes more complex when dealing with the ambiguousness of land status.
On one side, sago land status belongs to the Plantation and Forestry Agency, but on theother side sago starch belongs to the Food Crops Agency. Therefore, there is uncertain
responsibility of sago forest among Provincial Agricultural Agencies, particularly
between forestry, plantation and food crops agencies. To some extent, sago forest land
conversion into resettlements, wetland rice and horticulture, roads, housing and officebuilding are the threat to sago forest sustainability.
At the household level, the decline of sago consumption can be explained basedon some evidence from simple partial correlation analysis. In general, household

112South Pacific Studies Vol.34, No.2, 2014

expenditure (household income) has a positive correlation with rice consumption, but
negative correlation with sago consumption (Fig. 6). On the other side, household
expenditure has positive correlation with education, food diversification and riceconsumption. In addition, education correlated negatively with the size of farm.
It means that educated rural people, especially the youth, do not like to workon agricultural activities and prefer to work on non-farm activities such as civil
servants, drivers for motor cycles, canoes and cars, as well as temporary laborers
at supermarkets. Therefore, most farmers in rural areas are old men and have lower
education.
Overall, better household income and education will reduce sago consumption
and production, but it will enhance rice consumption and food diversification. Sago
production also correlated positively with tuber consumption. Thus, sago and tuber are
not a substitute, but complementary with each other, particularly among lower income
households. To some extent, households sold sago and tubers to buy rice. Based onfield experiences, local people generally refer to cassava and other tubers as ‘makanan
tanah’ (soil food) because they were taken from the soil. This depicts the perceptionof local people as local food consumers where local foods have lower social statuscompared with rice.
As a result, households prefer to provide guests with rice rather than local foodsuch sago, cassava and other tubers because they perceive that rice is a more nutritious
and prestigious food. Sago and tubers are perceived by rural people as inferior food,whilst rice is perceived as superior food. This indicates that the threat to food security
is not only the decline of local food consumption but also household consumption
dependency on rice import.
The other key factor of the decline of sago consumption was the sanitation of sago
starch processing. Traditional sago harvester used to use unclean river water from theforest to extract sago starch. Then the wet sago starch was placed into small baskets
made from sago leaves. These are called ‘sago tumang’ and weighed between 15 kg(small size) and 25 kg (big size). Generally, ‘sago tumang’ are brought to the muddy
traditional market. In this market, ‘sago tumang’ seems “unclean” because it is sold on
the muddy ground. Therefore, this is another reason why people do not like to consume
sago because they perceive that the sago food processing and marketing place isunhygienic.
Sago starch can be made into many forms and types of local food, particularly
dry sago starch, ‘sago lempeng’ or ‘papeda’. The problem is that local foodcompetitiveness is low because there is no sago product development for theseconventional sago products. Moreover, people usually never consume sago alone but
it is always accompanied by marine fish soup, tubers, peanuts and vegetables. Thus,
consuming sago food products will become more complex and expensive than that ofrice when the price of fish and tubers increase.

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113

Conclusions
Sago and other local food consumption have decreased significantly while riceconsumption has increased considerably up to 100-110 kg/capita/year or 30% higher
from the provincial government standard. The decline of the consumption of sago
relates to the rice bias policy, socio-cultural perceptions about sago as an inferior food,household income and expenditure, education level, rice consumption, and the budgetof consumers. There is a shifting trend in consumption from local food to imported rice
in Maluku, which is influenced by improved household income and low preference
and competitiveness towards local food products. One conclusion of the Seminar on
Food Security for Indonesia 2020 and Beyond was that the rise of per capita income
will shift consumption patterns from local food such as cassava, corn and sago torice, and then to wheat, which is characterized by more diversified food products (seewww.seadiproject.com). This trend and the improvement of rural household income
program will probably be a threat to local food producers who are still poor. However,
the threat can be an opportunity if local government has the political will and takes
action to diversify local food products and enhance its competitiveness by creating andpromoting pro-local food policy and social capital. The core of social capital is a social
movement to persuade Maluku people about the historical, cultural and environmental
values of local food. The main purpose is to restore local food status as the icon of
local staple food as well as to increase the preference of local food consumption and to
reduce gradually the dependency of people on imported rice and wheat.
As the World Food Summit of 1996 defined food security as all people at all
times having access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food as well as their preferences formaintaining a healthy and active life, food security should be based on local resources
and culture in order to avoid dependency on rice imports in the future. This suggeststhat the food security policy which is based on sago starch should be focused on
integrated and accelerated local food revitalization policies from down-stream to upstream sub-systems by linking local food resources, socio-economic and business,processing technology improvements as well as institutional development andenvironmental factors to enhance sago producer household income and prosperity.
Besides, differentiation of sago products and market guarantees, technicalassistance and organizational development to local farmers, as well as improving
competitiveness of sago and other local food into “modern food” like sago instantnoodles (PURWANI 2006) and other value added products such as fermentable sugar,
enzyme, compost for mushroom and animal feed (AWG-ADENI et al. 2010), should be
the prime key success factors for sago revitalization in small islands in Maluku. Then,sago products should develop into “food for low income households” to gradually
substitute the “rice for the poor” program. This is pivotal as Maluku staple food should
not be based on imported rice, but on non-rice food such as sago, cassava and othertubers. As sago is known as an environmental friendly crop, low external input and114

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functional food, local government and people of Maluku should be proud to make thepro-sago food policy a pivotal part and icon of local cultural identity.
Once sago food products are produced continually for a sustainable local foodsecurity by small scale industries, surplus of sago palm starch can be developed as araw material for industry development including sugar and bio-fuel. Otherwise, as thethird poorest province in Indonesia, food insecurity in Maluku Province will be an
unsolved problem because most households will be more dependent on imported ricethat is more expensive and difficult to access and links with an uncertain production,
climate change and limited sea transportation and communication for small islands.
Therefore, local government needs to cooperate with relevant stakeholders such asuniversities, private businesses and farmer organizations to develop a sustainablecluster of regional food security based on local resources and culture which is rooted
in this principle: to grow what we eat, and to eat what we grow (WELIRANG 2011).
This is probably a holistic affirmative action approach to revitalize the decline of sago
production and consumption in small islands of Maluku.

Acknowledgment
I would like to thank Ministry of Agriculture for the funding support of thisproject through Partnership Cooperation Program between Agricultural Research
Agency and University (KK3PT), Agricultural Agency for Research and Development,
Ministry of Agriculture of Republic of Indonesia, Jakarta. My sincerely thanks also
to my colleagues, Leonard Kakisina and G.Helena Augustyn, for your involvement
and invaluable assistance including my students, Ira and Desy Manuputty, who helped
me to collect data in the field. Based on this research I have proposed and accepted
research fund to continue study on sago preference, sago product development andmarketing that was supported by Master Plan of Economic Development Accelerationof Indonesia program, Directorate General of Research and Services, Ministry of
Education and Culture, Republic of Indonesia. Finally thank to Sota Yamamoto foryour help and support to motivate me the way to write and finalize the article.

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