Give priority to agro-industry: Soeharto

CILEUNGSI, Bogor, West Java (JP): President Soeharto called on farmers and entrepreneurs yesterday to focus on horticulture and the agro-industry because of the potential for added value.

"Our horticultural products are actually not inferior to foreign products. But we must admit that many of us still put them on a low priority scale," he said in a ceremony to celebrate the 15th World Food Day.

The ceremony was highlighted with the dedication of the 264- hectare Mekarsari Fruit Garden in Cileungsi, West Java.

Soeharto, who was accompanied by First Lady Tien Soeharto and Vice President and Mrs. Try Sutrisno, urged academicians to increase research on the genetic aspects of plants and fruits, because Indonesia currently spends a considerable amount of revenue on imported fruit.

"The research material is available at the fruit garden in Cileungsi and at a number of other gardens across the country," he said in the ceremony, which was held in front of a unique 30- meter high "waterfall" building at Mekarsari Fruit Garden.

Commenting on agricultural and food development in Indonesia, Soeharto said self-sufficiency in rice should be maintained to ensure that the country's increasing population continued to have a steady supply of food.

Ibrahim Abul-Zahab, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Representative for Jakarta, said later yesterday that this year's theme for World Food Day, "Food for All" focused on the role of the agriculture, forestry and fishery sectors in eradicating hunger and malnutrition.

Abul-Zahab said that despite the world's high level of food production -- with cereal yields reaching 2.7 tons per hectare in the 1990's --- more than 800 million people are still chronically undernourished. Among them, 200 million children under the age of five suffer from acute or chronic protein and energy deficiency.

In Indonesia, the theme has been locally adjusted to "Fruits and Vegetables to Improve the Quality of Human Resources".

"The theme reminds us that fruits and vegetables are important to improve the nutrition quality of our diets in order to enhance the quality of Indonesians," Soeharto said.

Garden

With yesterday's opening of Mekarsari Fruit Garden, the lyrics of the famous Indonesian song saying pepaya, pisang, jambu dibeli dari Pasar Minggu (papayas, bananas and guavas bought from Pasar Minggu) could be changed to papayas, bananas and guavas bought from Mekarsari.

In the 1970's Pasar Minggu in southern Jakarta was famous as a center for Indonesian tropical fruits, but its reputation has slowly faded. Mekarsari Fruit Garden, claimed to be the biggest fruit center in Southeast Asia and the biggest tropical fruit center in the world, could well come to substitute for the loss of Pasar Minggu as a fruit center.

Owned by Purna Bhakti Pertiwi Foundation, which is chaired by First Lady Tien Soeharto, Mekarsari Fruit Garden was built as a realization of Mrs. Tien Soeharto's wishes to develop thee Indonesian fruit industry and to produce high quality fruit marketable in the country and overseas.

Besides functioning as a horticultural garden which cultivates not only Indonesian fruits but also vegetables and decorative plants, the fruit garden is also meant to be a new tourist venue and a research center for horticultural studies. It will also be developed as a center for the preservation of Indonesian germ plasm and rare plants.

Designed

Eighty percent of the garden, designed in the form of a Lamtoro Gung (Leucaena leucocephala) tree's leaf pattern, is planted mostly with fruit, 10 percent with decorative plants and flowers, five percent with vegetables and the remaining five percent with medicinal plants and greenery.

Lamtoro Gung, was chosen as the theme of the garden and translated into the design of the garden because it symbolizes a multi-purpose plant -- preserver of the living environment and fulfiller of physical and spiritual needs.

Mekarsari Fruit Garden, managed by PT Mekar Unggul Sari belonging to the President's youngest daughter, Siti Hutami Endang Adiningsih Pratikto, has a fruit supermarket, nurseries, greenhouses, a 20-hectare lake, a flower exhibition park and a viewing tower. (pwn/als)