Researcher's contribution honored

Researcher's contribution honored

Wahyoe Boediwardhana, The Jakarta Post, Denpasar

After years getting his hands dirty developing agriculture in Bali, this year for Ir Dewa Ngurah Bagus Suprapta was especially sweet.

As sweet, perhaps, as the bananas he had helped save from withering on the vine -- for this was the year the public recognized how fruitful his work really was.

On Oct. 13, Dr. Suprapta, an indigenous Balinese, received the national Kehati Award for his tenacious research on a plant disease that makes banana trees wither in Bali, a project he has undertaken since 1998.

The award, especially for biodiversity conservationists, was given in the sustainable development category.

Earlier, former president Megawati Soekarnoputri awarded him the Satyalancana Pembangunan medal of merit for his services to agriculture.

Suprapta has invented BIOTA-L, a biopesticide that kills banana wilt disease, which causes banana trees to wither.

His research started in 1997, upon his return from Japan and completion of a doctorate in Agricultural Sciences at Kagoshima University.

Returning to Bali, Dewa was shocked by the 8 million banana trees on the island that had withered away from the disease in a serious drought that year. No pesticide had proved effective to fight it.

The disease, Suprapta said, was brought about by fungi and bacteria, which caused young bananas trees to rot and their leaves and stems to wither suddenly.

"Only kluthuk and mas merlin bananas are relatively resistant to this disease. This plague was obviously an economic disaster for the Balinese," he said.

This disease poses a great threat to the Hindu people in Bali because bananas are important in Balinese Hindu rites. In Hindu offerings, bananas must always be present, along with coconuts and rice.

Understandably, there is a high demand for bananas in Bali and the price of bananas there is the highest in the country. A 2002 survey showed the Balinese used 34 kilgrams of bananas perperson and that 70 per cent of this was intended for religious rites.

Suprapta, who is chief of the biopesticide laboratory at Udayana University school of agriculture, said the disease was first detected in Jembrana, the westernmost part of Bali.

From Jembrana, it moved fast, plaguing Tabanan, Buleleng, Badung, Bangli and the eastern part of the province, finally attacking banana trees in Karangasem.

"In just two years, this plant disease attacked virtually all banana trees in Bali. As a result, banana production in this province dropped sharply from about 135,000 tons per year in 1996/1997 to just 54,000 tons a year."

In coordination with the Bali provincial food crop agricultural service, Suprapta began his research in 1998. Assisted by two colleagues, Dr. Nyoman Arya and Dr. Made Sudana, he finally identified what caused the disease, which by then had attacked about 60 banana varieties in Bali.

His next job was finding a way to control it -- a cheap method that made use of local materials and was environmentally friendly.

He studied about 325 species of Balinese plants, ranging from bamboo to grass, to find active materials for his pesticide. In his research he found an extract of beetle leaves (piper betle piperaceae) and galangale rhizome (kaempferia rotunda linnaeus) were effective fighting the fungi and the bacteria that brought about the disease.

Then, he developed the pesticide into liquid form and called it BIOTA-L.

Suprapta also carried out research to produce an organic biopesticide made up of four species of antagonist microbes, consisting of three species of fungi and one of bacteria. All were obtained from the soil where the bananas were planted.

This biopesticide, called PERSADA, is in the form of compost and can be packed around the plant.

BIOTA-L and PERSADA have been patented with the Indonesian Ministry of Justice.

Suprapta, a father of two who was born in Batubulan, Gianyar, in 1958, said he followed Balinese wisdom when developing the cures.

"Our ancestors used to say that if you got a disease in a certain place, it was also there you could find the cure," said Dewa.

Suprapta has introduced his BIOTA-L and PERSADA to Balinese banana growers and has tested it in several plots of land where bananas are planted.

During the past four years, the pesticides have now eradicated withering banana plant disease from Bali -- a good return on Rp 2 billion-worth of research.

"We can only hope Bali will again resume its role as a banana- producing region and will no longer buy bananas from other places," Suprapta said.

Almost at the same time of his invention of BIOTA-L and PERSADA, he also invented a substance that could eliminate a plant disease that causes vanilla stems to rot.

These days, Suprapta is a member of a team of agricultural experts assisting the Bali governor, and is engaged in research on tuber development.

Research has been conducted on sweet potatoes, cassava, taro, yam, gadung (creeping edible tubers), suweg, sabrang and potatoes.

His latest invention is a form of red, sweet-potato wine, which also has health benefits.

The wine contains a high level of antosianin, a substance that can prevent the incidence of cancer, hypertension and heart failure. It has 80 percent more antosianin than blueberry wine.

Suprapto hopes the new government will pay more attention to the educational and research sector.

Advanced nations greatly appreciated researchers and the results of their studies, he said.

"Less-developed nations do not appreciate researchers. Indonesia is one of the countries that pays insufficient attention to research," he said.

Other recipients of Kehati awards were the Baduy community (for environmentally sustainable initiatives), Mandailing Natal, North Sumatra, regent Amru Helmy Daulay, (promoting sustainability), Setiawan Achmad (sustainability awareness) and singer Franky Sahilatua (sustainable development).