UGM students who are on a Student Community Service project in Lombok launched analogous rice along with CaRED team on Sunday (5/8). The launching is part of the celebration of Indonesia’s 73rd anniversary done in Masbagik area.
CaRED is a collaborative project between the government of New Zealand, UGM, Universitas Mataram, and regional government of Lombok Timur. The cooperation is on empowerment of small and medium business, environment, humanitarian crisis, conflict resolution, disaster management, and renewable energy.
Salma Al Ghiffary, event chairperson, said the event was organised to raise awareness on the importance of farmer’s welfare, particularly in West Nusa Tenggara. Analogous rice is chosen as an alternative because analogous rice has low glycemic index. Analogous rice is artificial rice made from cassava, corn, sago, tuber, and other sources of carbohydrate.
“This rice can be consumed to cure people with diabetes,” said Ghiffary on Wednesday (8/8) in his statement.
In the project, CaRED collaborated with UD Kaya Rasa in Masbagik Timur to produce the rice. The rice uses the formula by UGM and UNRAM with the ingredients from local Lombok Timur agriculture, namely pigeon pea, corn, modified cassava flour, and seaweed. This type of analogous rice has micronutrients from the pigeon pea and zink and calcium from the seaweed.
The launching was attended by Lombok Timur local government representatives such as H. Muhidin, Ir. Zulkifli, MMA., and Muhamad Farhi, S.E.Sy, sub-district head and village chiefs of Masbagik, CaRED representative Dr. Muktasam, representatives from Masbagik and Masbagik Baru local health centres as well as the residents of Masbagik Timur.
Dr. Muktasam in his speech expressed his hopes for the small scale food production in the form of analogous rice. “I hope this would improve the lives of the farmers from Lombok Timur in particular and West Nusa Tenggara in general,” he said.