Crop Science and Agriculture

Out of a potential 50,000 edible plants, just three of them provide most of the world's food energy, maize, rice and wheat.These key species, along with a handful of others, serve as the staple crops that support the estimation of Earth’s human population of 7,634,758,428 people in 2018. Many staple food crops are grown in Indonesia to feed more than 266,814,751 people in 2018. A food staple is a food that makes up the dominant part of a population’s diet.The Indonesian government implements a strategy to reposition agriculture as the driving force of national development including: (1) Th e achievement of self-suffi ciency in rice, maize, soybeans, chili and onions as well as increased production of sugar and meat, (2) An increase in diversifi cation, (3) An increase in added value commodity and competitive export market and import substitution, (4) The supply raw materials of bioenergy and bioindustry, and (5) An increase in the family income of farmers. Currently, there are nine main staple food crops producing energy sources consumed by Indonesians with their annual average per capita in kilogram consumption in 2017 were foodstuff containing rice (97.43), foodstuff containing soybean (8.78), cassava (6.35), sweet potatoes (3.67), wheat fl our (2.59), foodstuff containing corn (2.39), potatoes (2.22), sago fl our and others (1.18) and taro (0.75). Most of the Indonesian population rely on rice as a single staple food and there is no self-suffi ciency on rice production. Therefore, Indonesia is still dependent on imports from Th ailand and Vietnam to secure the domestic rice supply.