Gito Wiyono saves rare tubers

Gito Wiyono saves rare tubers

Sri Wahyuni, The Jakarta Post, Yogyakarta

Gito Wiyono, 54, is neither a researcher nor a scientist. He is
an elementary school dropout and a humble farmer of Brongkol, a
village in the hills of Bantul, some 25 kilometers southwest of
here.

What makes him so special is his great concern over the
preservation of local edible tubers -- many of which have become
rare. In his collection are over 100 species of tubers.

Garut (Arrowroot), talas (Xanthosoma vialaceum), gembili, uwi,
suweg, walur, iles, ore, ganyong (Queensland arrowroot), kimpul,
sente (Alocasia macrorhiza), jebubug, gadhung, kleci, dorak, and
cassava (Ipomoea batatas), and many others whose names are not
familiar even to local farmers, are in Gito Wiyono's collection.
Most of them come in more than one variety.

"I have 24 different subspecies of cassava," Gito Wiyono, or
Gito as he is affectionately called, told The Jakarta Post. He
rattled off the list of cassava species he has in the local
dialect.

Gito said he started collecting tuber plants in 1995 by
nurturing wild tubers growing on his 1,200-square-meter farm, of
which he later donated half to be used as the village's public
cemetery.

He never had the slightest intention to grow the plant as a
way to save it from extinction. He did it out of mere economic
reasons: to consume the produce or sell it on the market.

He began planting tubers when he his rice harvest failed
because of pests, and he had to work as a gardener at Argodadi's
village office. He found that food prices, especially for rice,
were expensive at the time.

However, as time went by, he became more and more interested
in planting more tubers in his field, especially after realizing
that many of them were endangered. He then began hunting for
tubers at a number of local markets, and then transplanted them
at his farm.

After developing contacts with more people, he has one thing
on his mind, and that is to preserve the rare tubers from
extinction.

"I have been compelled to do so because I realized that many
tuber species were on the brink of extinction. Among the rare
ones are those that were once our staple food, especially during
the country's difficult times in the 1950s," Gito said.

And that is how he became a tuber farmer, a profession that
has won him the nickname Gito Garut, referring to one of the
tubers he plants.

In fact, garut has now become Gito's main source of income as
he makes this particular tuber the main product of his total
5,000-square-meter farm and the other 1.5 hectares he rents from
neighbors.

"Thanks to tubers, I can now buy more farmland and hire some
more help for my garut business," said Gito, adding that he also
produces garut crackers and powder. Due to his hard work, he can
save Rp 400,000 in cash a month.

"I also make crackers and powder from other tubers, including
the rare ones, but they are mostly based on order," he said.

The father of six children said the reason why he was proud of
what he was doing was that the tubers had made it possible for
him to meet and interact with many people.

People from faraway places come to him for the tuber business.
They come from Surakarta, Surabaya, Bali, Jakarta, Banjarmasin,
Medan and Makassar.

The local agriculture office, too, often invites Gito to share
his tuber-planting experiences with other farmers in the region
in various discussions. His tuber fields become a kind of
laboratory for researchers and students of local universities.

"Sometimes I feel awkward because I didn't finish my
elementary schooling. But I'm often asked to give 'lectures' to
university students on planting tubers," Gito said.

He said that planting tubers was very easy and required only
simple technology.

"What you have to do is just get rid of the wild grass around
them and give them some manure," said Gito.

Brongkol, where Gito lives in, is a dry and rocky area. It is
difficult to plant anything there unless it is during the
rainy season. In the dry season, most plants dry up.

Planting tubers, as Gito has proven, does not require a large
quantity of water. They can grow just fine throughout the year,
he said.

Gito's experience has given his neighbors a useful lesson. No
less than 50 of his neighbors currently make use of their spare
fields to plant tubers, mostly garut, and sell the produce to
Gito, who will make it into crackers or powder, or just resell it
to traders.

"As far as I know, Gito is the only one to preserve tubers in
the province, or maybe even the country. I have never known of
such a vast collection of tubers as his. He has done a great job
in preserving rare tubers," said Nursanti Widi Arimbi, a lecturer
at neighboring Wangsa Manggala University's School of
Agriculture, which is conducting research at Gito's tuber farm.