Training Course on the Handling and Processing of Red Fruits

Red fruit is one of the native agricultural commodities of Papua that has  high  potentialiality and feasible to be developed as one of the sources of income for local communities.  Papua is the best place to grow and develop of red fruit, which contains oil that is believed to have powerful properties to suppress the growth of cancer cells as well as other positive effects. However, knowledge of the farmers in  handling and processing of red fruit is still very minimal, therefore, a training course on handling and processing of red fruit is  really required. It is  expected that the course will  help to improve the  knowledge in the management of red fruits.

For that reason, the Regional Office of the Ministry of Trade and Cooperation and Small and Medium Enterprises (Perindagkop) Mamberamo Raya Regency, Papua, in cooperation with Center for Research on Engineering Application in Tropical Agriculture CREATA) of Bogor Agricultural University organized the Training Course on " Technology on Handling and Processing Red Fruit", which was held  in  Darmaga campus and in the Center for Agro Industry, Cikaret, Bogor, on 25 November – 1 December 2010.

This course was participated by  7 (seven) red fruit growers and 7 (seven) owners of red fruit home industries in the district Mamberamo, who represented  their respective groups.  Through the course, the participants were expected to pass on and to be trainers for their respective groups. Thus, they are expected to multiply and disseminate the  knowledge they obtained to most members of the associations.

According to the Head of CREATA, Prof. Tineke Mandang, the said training course was  intended to provide the  participants the ability to apply various technologies in handling the fresh red fruits such as harvesting, cleaning, drying and storage; knowlegeable and skillful  in the utilizing the equipment to produce red fruit oil, as well as understanding  innovation for added value through the application of simple processing technology, with simple methods and equipment to produce health supplements, alternative foods, or basic ingredients for pharmaceutical industry.