Research Relevant to National Needs
To support the increasing nation competitiveness, research activity is directed to empowering Department research program in food security and food safety areas. By mapping research activities conducted in the Department, direction/strategy can be elucidated toward food security and food safety, according to the need/demand of industries and government. Research activities developed are directed toward increasing number of publications in national/international journals, and numbers of innovative technologies that can be adopted by food industry. In addition, conducting research involving students will have positive effect on graduate competency in the field of food security and food safety.
Research Supporting Food Security Program
Food security establishment is expected to be able to provide food sufficiently for all citizens especially from local products in sufficient quantity and diversity, safe and accessible at all the time. There are several problems and challenges faced by Indonesia that can threaten the national food security, they are as follow:
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The size of the population around 210 million people in the year 2002 (BPS projection) requires around 25.2 million tons of rice per year (Deptan, 2003). This requirement will steadily increase yearly according to the population growth. In the mean time, there is limitation in local rice production which reflects the unavoidable need of importing rice that is estimated to increase yearly. In addition, people in Indonesia , including in suburb area, has also now consumed a lot of wheat-based products resulting in the high demand on wheat. The Indonesian import of wheat had reached about 3 million tons in 2003. If this condition continues while no effort to explore alternative local carbohydrate sources, the national food security will be under serious threat.
- Food policy development focusing on rice has reduced exploration and utilization of other carbohydrate source foods (i.e tubers and cereals), and affects the rate of efforts in supplying protein foods (i.e. meat, egg and milk), micro mineral source foods (i.e. vegetables and fruits) and the potency of local foods distributed in all area of the country.
- Implementation of local food processing and production technology has not yet capable of producing products that can compete with imported food products that are now overwhelming market.
On the contrary, Indonesia has potency to develop food resources as alternative carbohydrate sources, such as sweet potato and corn. The food products based on sweet potato and corn are potential to become alternative foods for people and are expected to be able to substitute rice as the staple food. Development of alternative foods requires the support of improvement of agriculture production system, processing technology yielding good quality and cheap food as well as socialization to encourage community acceptance. Food processing industry has developed intensely in producing ready to serve and to eat foods. Those industries can be stimulated to produce foods based on local commodity. This needs support in form of research innovation to develop or improve food processing technology that can be adopted by food industries. In addition, government policy that can support industrialization of food products based on local raw material is highly needed.
In the era of increasingly tight global competition, national food security program must be able to attain a condition where food products are competitive in local markets against imported food products. Furthermore, food products from Indonesia must be able to compete with other products in regional and global markets. To achieve this, national food industries must be capable of producing good quality food products. This means that food industry sector must be capable of transforming itself to become knowledge-based food industries. This transformation process requires supports in form of human resource (employees/professionals) possessing competency in the field of food science and technology as well as research and development support to yield innovative technology that can be implemented in the industries. This implies that universities are required to produce graduates with competency and quality needed by food industries and able to develop innovative and applicative research needed by food industries. Government policy supporting toward the development of knowledge-based food industries is also needed.
Research Supporting Food Safety Program
One of the element in food security is food safety aspect for consumer consumption. Food safety has been increasingly focused both through its relationship with individual safety assurance and global food trade. More than 98% (around 647.000 units) of food processing industries in Indonesia are home-small medium industries. Hence, there are around 2.000 units (2%) that belong to the large scale industry category. In general, small medium scale industries have not yet implemented or fulfill sanitation and hygienic standard in their industrial system. This is demonstrated by the numerous incidences of food poisoning cases in Indonesia which are caused by mistakes in food handling and processing. In regard to the food product export from Indonesia, rejections by corresponding countries had been resulted by sanitation and hygienic problems. Rejections because of filthy, Salmonella and aflatoxin are still the major reason of the rejection. To solve the problems, it is necessary to create programs that can increase sanitation and hygienic both during production (agriculture) and during processing, where university can hold an active role in it.
Food safety is a very strategic issue as it is closely linked to the public health, economy and global trade. Improvements in food safety is necessary to improve the competitiveness of the nation's food products thus facilitate export which has been hampered by food safety issues such as microbial, chemical and physical contaminants.
Strategic Research Areas
The followings are research areas supporting food security and food safety programs that Department has concerns:
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Identification and characterization of hazard that continuously cause human illness and hamper the competitive advantage of food products, such as Staphylococcus aureus and Clostridium perfringens in ready-to-eat foods, Salmonella in seafood products, aflatoxin in cereals, and heavy metals in vegetables;
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Risk assessment for particular hazard in particular food
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Characterization of physicochemical properties of local resources both for processing and health purposes
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Post harvest handling, packaging and storage of local resources to produce high quality and safe foods. Basic research to evaluate unique characteristics of food components for its physical, chemical and health functions.
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