People turn to 'alternative' food items for survival
By Lorensius Molan
KUPANG, East Nusa Tenggara (Antara): As food shortages take a grip on the eastern provinces, people have taken to eating "alternative" food to survive.
For adults in rural areas in Kupang district, putak is a foodstuff usually eaten only when stocks of rice, corn, tubers and other crops are running low.
Putak is the dried or boiled flesh of the stem of a kind of sugar palm called gewang (Corifa gebana).
"We, adults, can eat boiled putak. But this is not suitable for children because after having it they usually get diarrhea," Agustina Panael, 23, a housewife in Poto village, said.
She usually feeds her children on corn or tubers when rice becomes scarce.
Panael, a mother of five, admitted that she and her children first ate putak last December.
"We have decided to eat putak because of the unavailability of rice," she told Kupang district head, Paul Lawa Rihi.
Rihi recently visited Poto and the neighboring village of Neutaus in Fatuleu subdistrict, as he heard they were among settlements reportedly threatened with starvation.
Poto village, home to 648 families (2,892 people), is located 100 km east of Kupang and several mountainous areas and a number of large rivers make it even more remote.
"This year our harvest failed completely because of a long dry season. That's why we have to eat putak," said Johannes Bartholomeus Hai, 36, a villager in Poto.
He added: "However, this does not mean that we are suffering from starvation."
Poto village head, Matius Nifu Eki, admitted that 119 families in the village had eaten putak as their main staple since last December because of crop failure.
"The drought this year is worse than in previous years. For a lack of corn and rice, we have no other choice but eat putak," he said.
Eating putak is also common in Neutaus, home to 726 families (3,415 people), even though village head Yeremia Nenobahan said that the residents had not yet had to resort to eating it every day.
To serve it as a meal, putak is often processed into flour in the same way as sago, the staple food for the indigenous people of Maluku. However, as the processing technique is generally alien to rural people in Kupang district, they tend to boil it.
"We used to have a special machine to process putak into flour. Unfortunately, when our district was inundated last year, the machine was carried away by the flood," said Rihi.
The local government launched the Love the People drive in Kupang and managed to collect some 30 tons of rice from the Kupang community. The rice was sent to the areas suffering the most severe food shortages. Each village received one ton of rice.
Labor-intensive projects such as roadmaking and market operations were also launched to relieve the suffering.
Maria Nenobahan, a housewife in Neutaus, said the rice supplied by the logistics depot was sold at Rp 1,500 (17.5 U.S. cents) per kilogram. Many villagers had to sell their cattle and fowl before buying the rice, she said.
Rihi acknowledged that the rice was not being given away.
"The villagers will not get the rice for free. They will have to join the labor-intensive projects. They must be empowered so that they won't just give up easily when life becomes difficult," he said.
He believed that the purchasing power of Neutaus villagers was still relatively strong. Therefore, aid given to them would only be in the form of market operations and labor-intensive projects.
"Their purchasing power is still good. Although this year has seen a harvest failure, local people can still sell their cattle," Lawa Rihi said after visiting the village.
It is also reported that residents of Bokong village in Central Kupang subdistrict are also threatened with starvation. However, as the village is difficult to reach, the Kupang district head has not had an opportunity to take a close look at the situation there.