Aside from relieving women of a considerable burden, the fermentation method is popular because it reduces firewood consumption and because the processed roots can be kept for months without special storage facilities. It also boosts household income by increasing the efficiency of farm and family resources, and by increasing the number of pigs that can be raised in a given year.
The project, now in its second phase, is financed by an A$1.2 million (US$940,000) grant from the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR). Key collaborators include the Indonesian Research Institute for Legumes and Tuber Crops (RILET), Papua’s Jayawijaya District Livestock Office, and the South Australian Research Development Institute (SARDI).
Diversity at the core
Papua, formerly known as Irian Jaya, occupies the western half of the island of New Guinea and covers an area nearly twice the size of the Netherlands. The region is also home to some of the world’s most unusual sweetpotatoes.
“The traditional varieties grown in Papua don’t always resemble what we think of as sweetpotato,” says Keith Fuglie, CIP Regional Representative for East and Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Fuglie, who is based at the CIP office in Bogor, notes that local farmer varieties come in unusual shapes and colors, and serve a variety of uses. Some are used for food, some are grown for pig feed, and others are used specifically for ceremonial or religious purposes.
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| Sukendra Mahalaya, project assistant in the CIP-Bogor office, and Luther Kosay work together on the CIP-ACIAR project to ensure that sweetpotato will continue to improve lives for people in Papua. At left, Kosay examines an unusual sweetpotato from project experiment fields (middle). Below, Kosay and Mahalaya confer on project issues. |
Through natural and farmer selection, New Guinea’s sweetpotatoes have evolved into unique local varieties that thrive in isolated ecological niches. In some cases, the island’s sweetpotatoes can be found growing at 2,800 meters above sea level, considerably higher than those found in South America. In the central highland Baliem Valley, where the project activities are located, at least 1,000 types of sweetpotato are cultivated by farmers and a single field may contain between 20 and 40 distinct varieties.
“We’re conscious of our responsibility to safeguard biodiversity as we introduce improved varieties,” says Fuglie. Farmers are involved early in the evaluation process and are encouraged to incorporate promising new varieties into their production systems to complement, but not replace, existing varieties.
Local varieties and farming systems, Fuglie notes, underwent meticulous study before the introduction of new varieties began. In the early 1990s, CIP led a 10-year project with funding from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) to conserve and characterize native “landraces” of sweetpotato. Over 500 varieties were collected and studied, and CIP helped to establish an in situ conservation site in Papua. For safekeeping, the Center maintains a duplicate collection at an Indonesian research station in Java.
Luther Kosay: A tale of two worlds
Project researchers also pay special attention to the farming and social structures in New Guinea to avoid working against the grain of local practices and principles, many of which are poorly understood by outsiders. In this regard, the cooperation of locals such as Luther Kosay, a member of the Hubura tribe in the highlands of the Papua province, has played a major role in the initiative’s success.
Since November 2001, Kosay has coordinated the CIP-ACIAR project’s on-station and field research. In the course of an ordinary day, Kosay manages an array of complicated field trials, collects socioeconomic data, and serves as the link between farmers and scientists working in the pig feed project.
“Luther is invaluable,” says Fuglie. “He is our principal liaison between project scientists and local farmers and is an outstanding technician as well.” Kosay’s contribution to the project, nonetheless, goes far beyond this important role. He has provided important information on the Papuan sociocultural and belief systems associated with sweetpotato and pig raising. “Without his help we would be working with little knowledge of local customs and almost no ability to communicate with local people,” adds Fuglie.
Rural sociologist Dai Peters conducted extensive interviews with Kosay and recorded his experience and insights. “Luther was born Idoakoba Kossy of the Witawaya clan of the Hubura tribe,” notes Peters. Although Kosay did not know the date of his birth, he was certain that he was born sometime before 1962, when Indonesia obtained sovereignty over the region and began registering births. “He stated with precision: I must be between 40 and 50 years old,” adds Peters.
“The changes Luther underwent in his life parallel the change of the Hubura in general,” notes Peters. “Their macro changes can be vividly understood by way of the micro changes that he underwent.” According to Kosay, although diets have become more diversified in recent years, sweetpotato remains central to the tradition of the Hubura people, or Dani, as they are now called. Not only are the roots appreciated as food; sweetpotatoes are also fundamental to local pig production, and pigs are at the core of Dani social, cultural, and economic values.
Kosay’s knowledge comes from firsthand experience. Until entering primary school, sometime between the age of 15 and 20, he spent most of his time caring for his family’s pigs as they roamed the forests in search of food. Sweetpotato was fed to the pigs twice a week, meaning that considerable time and energy was spent finding and transporting the firewood needed to cook enough roots for dozens of pigs.
Because he did not know how to count, comments Peters, Kosay kept track of his pigs by repeating to himself: “I have a brown pig, a black one, a white one, and a black and white one; and I have two pigs with ears cut.” He told time by observing the shadow cast by the sun. Exposure to mission schools changed this. It also changed Kosay’s name—and the course of his life, which included 14 years as a primary school teacher before joining CIP.
“Through people like Luther Kosay, and with help from ACIAR, CIP hopes to boost the efficiency of a traditional crop in a way that complements local traditions and increases people’s ability to compete in a rapidly changing society,” concludes Fuglie.
Security for the future
Introduction of the sweetpotato fermentation technology comes at a particularly important time as Papua undergoes rapid population growth. By some estimates, the province will double its population by 2010.
The project will help to offset food shortages and malnutrition, problems that are prevalent throughout the highlands of New Guinea, especially in isolated communities such as those in the Baliem Valley. In 1997-98, for instance, famine was reported after an especially severe drought associated with the El Niño phenomenon.
According to Colin Cargill, a SARDI animal scientist who is leading the second phase of the project, the initiative is not focused solely on sweetpotato fermentation, but also works to promote better management practices, reduce animal diseases and parasites, and provide training to community leaders and extension agents.
Thus far some 300 farmers, as well as staff from the Jayawijaya Livestock Office, have been trained in parasite detection in pigs produced for human consumption, in pig feeding, and in modified husbandry systems based on traditional practices. The modified husbandry system also helps prevent the spread of parasites among pigs, and from pigs to humans.
An important concern, Cargill says, is that the process of improving feeding efficiency does not threaten the survival of indigenous pig breeds or encourage people to move away from locally grown crops. The objective, he says, is to make pig production more efficient, a process that should also have a favorable impact on the environment.
1 Peters is currently based in Vietnam and is employed by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT).
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| LIFE-SIM 2003, a simulation model developed in the high Andes, is helping Asian nutritionists and animal scientists to improve their livestock systems. |
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CIP modeling tools assist Asian livestock producers
CIP scientists are collaborating with Asian researchers to predict the impact of feeding sweetpotato roots and vines to millions of pigs. The research, which is conducted under the banner of the Systemwide Livestock Initiative, convened by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), should help local pork producers cope with rising feed prices.
At a workshop held in August 2003, 26 nutritionists and animal scientists from five Asian countries received training in the application of the LIFE-SIM 2003 simulation model, a tool that can help researchers predict responses to changes in livestock feed strategies. The model was originally developed by CIP for natural resource management research in the high Andes. A specially adapted version for Asian livestock systems includes two new tools: a simulation model for pigs and milking buffaloes, and a revised version for dairy and beef cattle. The models are freely available and can be downloaded from the CIP website.
As Asia’s people become wealthier, meat consumption is expected to grow, potentially forcing farmers to purchase grain at higher prices. An article published in the China Daily in October 2003 noted, for example, that corn supplies throughout China were extremely tight and that prices had jumped more than 7 percent in one major swine-producing province.
The workshop was held at the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCARRD), a long-time CIP collaborator. It was organized by the Crop-Animal Systems Research Network (CASREN), which is supported by ILRI and is financed by the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
For more information about CIP modeling work in Asia, read New Tools Simplify Decision Making In Complex Mountain Ecosystems in CIP Annual Report 2002. |
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