THE COMMUNITY RESISTANCE TO TOWARD CASSAVA RICE AS A SUBSTITUTE FOR RICE

Anastasya Gumelar 1), Sylvester Agathon1), Yohanes Kristo1), Sumardi2)

1)

Students; Food Technology Department; Faculty of Agricultural; Soegijapranata Catholic University 2) Lecturer; Food Technology Department; Faculty of Agricultural; Soegijapranata Catholic University sumardi2112@yahoo.co.id ABSTRACT

Rice flour which is the staple food in Indonesian citizen, is known that rice cannot supply the needs of the citizen because of the high growth rate. Due to that, Indonesia has to import rice product for about 10-12 % each year from its total production. A lot of research has been done to produce any kind of alternative staple food product, moreover some of local industries have served the staple food as a form of rice-like product like cassava rice. But, the consumption rate of rice-like product is still relatively low. Due to this problem, a research is done to review the knowledge about the rice-like product, the will to change their rice consumption to another alternatives and also the reasons. The research is done to 50 respondents with low-income in Semarang city. From the research, most of all respondents knew about the alternative staple food especially sweet potato, cassava, corn, and sago. But, less than 30% of the respondents want to change their rice consumption to another alternatives because of its tasty taste. While, the other respondents reject the change of their rice consumption to staple food alternatives due to Indonesian culture and their perception of its taste. Keywords: rice, cassava rice, rice-like.

INTRODUCTION Rice is a food commodity that is very strategic because rice is the staple food of Indonesian citizen. Even though the production of rice is still raising, this increasing rate still cannot maintain the need of food of Indonesian citizen. Thus, Indonesia can be said that Indonesia has a crisis of insufficient in having rice. To solve this problem, there are 2 strategies. First that Indonesia have to raise the production and reduce the consumption of rice. Thus, diversification is needed. Diversification is differentiation of food supply to improve the quality of people's diet, both in quality and quantity. Goal of diversifying food consumption in practice emphasized in an effort to reduce the consumption of rice because rice is still to this day considered a staple food of the people of Indonesia (Martianto 2005). So, many researches try to make diversification by making some alternatives of staple food product in term to reduce the consumption of rice. One of the research is making product using cassava as a staple food or it is called cassava rice. Based on to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Global Cassava Development Strategy, cassava has become the third most important source of calories in the tropical country, after rice and corn. Millions of people depend their food on cassava in Africa, Asia and Latin America. This product nowadays have already been spreading commercially in many market. However in the development, the consumption rate of cassava rice among the people in Indonesia is still low. Because of this problem, a research is done to find out why all this researches in order to develop cassava as a staple food is seems to be particularly failed. The purpose in this research is to review their knowledge about cassava rice and also to find out the peoples reasons of why t he existence of cassava rice among them is refused.

MATERIALS AND METHODOLOGY To find out their respond of cassava rice, survey is done in 50 respondents with low income who are living in Semarang city. This low-income citizens such as butcher, servant, maid, security, and gardener are chosen randomly at the age of 20 50 years old. Their income rate is about under 1.000.000 rupiahs each month. This survey is using questioner as a way to collect data. This questioner consist of many question about their knowledge of cassava rice, the distribution, and the reasons why whether they accept or reject to change their main food from rice to cassava rice.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION After the survey is done, it can be calculated that 92 percent of respondent know about staple food alternatives for rice and just 8 percent of respondents dont know about it. Almost all of them also is more familiar with corn as the food alternatives.
Makanan Pokok Ubi jalar Jagung Sagu Singkong Jumlah Orang yang mengetahui 22 33 25 27 47.83% 71.74% 54.35% 58.70% Presentase

Table 1.Table of staple food that the respondents know about. Their knowledge about cassava rice itself can be said 44% of them know that cassava rice exist. Almost of them hear it from the culture and history that their parents brought to them many times ago. But unfortunately, there are some of them who are still do not know about where and from who they can get this

cassava rice. Thus it can be conclude that the distribution of cassava rice is still cant reach the citizen more widely. This means that distribution problem can be the reason of why they cannot exchange rice become cassava rice because they dont know how to get it.
Mau beralih ya tidak 15 35

Tabel 2. The will of citizen to change their rice to cassava rice.

From the second table, the fact is almost all of the 50 respondents who have been promoted to taste the products from cassava rice is reject it. Can be seen that just 30 percent of them who is willingly agree to change their staple food to cassava rice. And the other of the 30 percent is disagree to change their staple foods. Their main reasons of why they disagree is actually about culture and also their custom to eat rice every day. They have been customized by their parents to consume rice while they are hungry and also for everyday consumption. They also feel that if they are not consuming rice they will feel like they have eaten nothing. They also said thay cassava rice is still not matched to other food like soup, and etc. They think that the taste provided by cassaca rice is not too match with other food. They will prefer cassava rice as their snack.
Alasan

Tabel 3 Reasons of the citizens about cassava rice.

tidak Rasa enak Tekstur Baik 8 1 3 8 rasa kurang enak budaya tekstur kurang baik lainnya 13 24 7 6

Moreover, the look of cassava rice itself still cannot be accepted. This is proved by when some of the

Lebih Bergizi lainnya

respondents feel like they dont want to taste the cassava rice and also the flavor of cassava in this kind of rice is still strong.

Their resistance of cassava rice is now similar to what Aryani (2003) said about diversification. Ariani explain that an unoptimal diversification one of them is because of psychological factors that involved. In this term, the diversification is the cassava rice itself. The psychological factors are the perception of the people about rice. They think that they are not eating if they do not eating rice. It is because rice is a feeling of pride to be indicators of community well-being, and sense of rice that fits in the tongue of Indonesian society. The reaction of the respondents when looking about the cassava rice is called the consumption behavior. Ariani explained that Consumption behavior is seen of whether they consume the food or not and also whether considered as a staple food.

CONCLUSION From the survey that is done, 92 % of the citizen know about cassava rice. Also, 70 % of them who knows it reject the existence of cassava rice. They still cannot accept the existence of cassava rice because of several reasons. The main reason is about cultural aspect. The other reasons are also about the distribution which still cannot reach the people widely enough. Moreover, the Texture and the taste from cassava rice itself cannot surpass rice which is more acceptable among citizen in Indonesia.

SUGGESTION From things above, it is advised to the other researcher that they have to create any kind of staple food composed by cassava or other product better than before. Better means that they have to compare from the taste, texture, form, and well distribution so that people can feel that this staple food is acceptable. Otherwise, government also have to encourage their people that there are still a lot of staple food other than rice that is actually healthy so as the rice itself. REFERENCES Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. (2004). The global cassava development strategy and implementation plan. Proceedings of the validation forum on the global cassava development strategy, 1. Retrieved March 14, 2005, from http://www.fao.org/documents/show_cdr.asp?url_file=/docrep/006/y0169e/y0169e00.htm Deptan.go.id.2011. Roadmap Peningkatan Produksi Beras Nasional (P2BN) Menuju Surplus Beras 10 Juta Ton pada Tahun 2014. From http://tanamanpangan.deptan.go.id/doc_upload/44_BAB%20I%20dan%20II.pdf

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