BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

1.1. BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

It has been a long time that Indonesian has variety of food resources beside vice, like sago for people from Maluku and surrounding, corn for Maduranese, cassava and taro and others for other society. Even sweet potato is also as food resource for Indonesian society. Indonesian government takes policy that the food sources should be the same, that is rice, we call it now as “Indonesian Natural Food.” In order to fulfill the need of national food resources the government has done many programs to increase and enlarge food plantation by having BIMAS, INMAS and by opening mega project for agriculture in Kalimantan but this project failed. The supply of national food from year to year has not been able to fulfill the needs of food. The government choose to import rice as the policy until now. In 1985 Indonesian exported 407.258 tons rice and in 1990 it was only 3.287 tons. There was an idea to enlarge the variety of national food like before 1960 for cassava, sweet potato, corn, sago, etc. If the supply of food by using rice can’t be fulfilled. In 1950 the government had tried to supply national food by having “TEKAD” rice. It is artificial rice made of TE – 1o cassava, KA – cang peanut especially mug bean and D – jagung corn. This “TEKAD” rice has more nutrient than rice, cassava has 146 calorie – 1,2 protein – 0,3 fat – 34,7 carbohydrate; mug bean has 345 calorie – 22,2 protein – 1,2 fat and 62,5 carbohydrate; corn has 307 calorie – 7,9 protein – 3,4 fat – 63,6 carbohydrate. Compare with rice, it has only 360 calorie – 6,8 protein – 0,7 fat and 78,9 carbohydrate. Table 1 Plant C o n t e n t Calorie Protein Fat Carbohydrate Cassava 146 1,2 0,3 34,7 Potato 83 2,0 0,1 19,1 Taro 98 1,9 0,2 23,7 Edible tuber 95 1,0 0,1 22,6 Sweet potato 123 1,8 0,7 27,9 Rice 360 6,8 0,7 78,9 Source : Directorate of nutrient, Dep. Kes. RI By looking at the table above we know that cassava can be chosen as one of the alternative food to help the society to fulfill their needs of nutrient beside rice.

1.2. REASONS FOR CHOOSING THE TOPIC