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).