PALMOILMAGAZINE, JAKARTA – Professor Antonius Suwanto, a specialist in Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology at Institut Pertanian Bogor (IPB) and a member of the Biosafety Technical Team in the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, emphasized the importance of introducing plant biotechnology seeds to aid smallholders.
He believes that modern biotechnological techniques, including genetically engineered seeds (PRG) or genome editing, have been developed to mitigate potential losses for small-scale farmers.
“Agricultural biotechnology products, for instance, seeds, would be very useful for the smallholders. The plants would be superior in characteristic, such as, would be adaptive to extreme weather changes, having more durable tenacity to pests and diseases rather than conventional seeds or non PRG,” Prof. Antonius recently said, as in the official statement to Palmoilmagazine.com.
He also told without adopting biotechnology seeds, the smallholders would be difficult to face the climate change, plant organism pest that would decrease their harvest products.
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Prof. Antonius showed the findings from J. GM Crops & Food that mentioned, biotechnology seed adoption significantly escalated the smallholders’ income. In 2020 the smallholders’ income escalated and reached US$ 18,8 billion within the escalation 52 percent for those in developing countries and 48 percent for those in developed countries. The income derived from the increasing production and saved costs, such as, agricultural inputs and other operational costs.
Meanwhile the Ambassador of Petani Milenial, Sandi Octa Susila said that even though Indonesia is dominated by more than 39 – year old – smallholders, millennial smallholders have high interests in biotechnology seeds. Sandi thought the millennial smallholders are still waiting for wider access to get biotechnology seeds and hoped that the government would keep supporting the development and commerce of biotechnology seeds in the markets. She proposed that technology and digitalization innovation would be important to fulfill food demands which keep increasing in every year.
“As smallholders we hope that the government would support to keep developing biotechnology seeds and the commerce in the markets so that our friends as smallholders positively get the impacts just like many countries do,” Sandi said.
By adopting biotechnology seeds, it is hoped Indonesia would develop food security which is sustainable and escalate the smallholders’ welfare. (T2)
