Timika, Jubi/Antara – The Amungme and Kamoro Community Development Institute (LPMAK) said it aimed to have a sago flour factory located at Kekwa Village, Mimika Barat, Papua operate in the middle of this year.
The LPMAK Program Secretary Yohanis Arwakon said in Timika on Sunday (8/3/2015) the construction of sago flour factory’s building has been completed and LPMAK is just waiting for the installation of machines in the near future.
“The machines were all settled but have not been installed yet. We still stick at the technical problem that soil conditions were increasingly degraded,” he said.
According to him, the factory was planned to produce the sago flour as primary consumption of Kamoro tribe community and other Papuan tribes.
For the initial stage, he said, the factory would be still handed by the LPMAK staffs, but in the future it would be run directly by the Kamoro tribe. Currently the LPMAK is training the local workers who would be handled the operation of the sago flour at Kekwa Village.
Arwakon said Kekwa Village was chosen to become a location of sago flour factory after so many considerations. The LPMAK and the consultant initially took the aerial photographs to review the potential of sago forest at the Mimika coastal area. These photographs later would subsequently compared with the real condition on the ground.
The sago flour factory at Kekwa Village, he further said, became a pilot project to build another sago factories at several villages located at the Mimika coastal area. In realization of its plan, the LPMAK would not only cut the sago trees as raw material of sago flour once the factory will operate, but it also invited the Kekwa villagers and its surrounding villages to start growing the seeds of sago varieties such as Sentani sago and other sago varieties to increase the collection of existing sago plants.
“We continue to motivate the community to start making plan of growing the sago plants although the harvesting has not done yet. We got the seeds from other place such as Sentani and we will well maintain the existing sago forest for better sago quality,” he said.
Arwakon said the LPMAK collected 10 thousand of sago seeds from outside of Mimika to add its plant collection at the coastal area. The sago seed would be planted at the location allocated to be overstock for the sago flour factory that will be immediately operated.
Arwakon added the sago flour factory at the Mimika coastal area is part of the LPMAK commitment to raise the community’s food stock in particular for Komoro tribe who rely on sago and fish as their primary food. (*/rom)
