The government aims to push the country to gradually reduce wheat import by around 20 percent from now until 2014, Minister of Agriculture Suswono said.
To help achieve the target, Suswono said, the government would promote the production and consumption of modified cassava flour (mocaf).
The government hopes that mocaf could substitute up to 3.8 percent of the country’s annual wheat consumption of around 5 million tons per year.
But flour industry players said that as long as mocaf remains pricier than wheat-based flour products, the domestic flour industry would be reluctant to switch to mocaf. They said that the government must provide a kind of incentives to boost mocaf production to allow the product to reach its desirable economic of scale.
The supply of cassava raw material for the production of mocaf must also be assuered to ensure long-term prodution. (rei)
