Marci Henderina Tanaos, Weapons from the Farm

KOMPAS/SAMUEL OKTORA

Marci Henderina Tanaos

Marci Henderina Tanaos keeps powerful weapons at her farm. With those weapons, she fights against tengkes (stunting), which haunts people in East Nusa Tenggara. She tries to fight malnutrition, which causes stunting in babies, by sowing the seeds of local plants on her farm.

The Local Food Festival in Oh’aem 1 village, South Amfoang district, Kupang regency, NTT, is an elegant closing for the celebration of religious holidays in the village. A campaign about meeting nutritional needs with food harvested from local farms is the core of the story. Festival participants came from 13 groups of 10 houses (dasawisma) representing their respective neighborhoods (RTs) in Oh’aem 1 village. They presented foods from around the village.

Some of the ingredients are familiar to the general public. For example, there are cassava leaves, papaya leaves and pumpkin shoots. However, there is also something that sounds strange and is only known in the local language. It’s hard to find the equivalent in Indonesian. For example, there are akun beluket, similar to mushrooms, and ajaow and toni, which resemble sweet potatoes.

What about taste? This festival requires the food to have local flavors. The sweetness in a cup of coffee is not from sugar cane, but forest honey. The spiciness is not from chili, but from the olabaij tuber, a kind of taro. If you want to provide cow\'s milk or chicken meat, the conditions are strict. The cow must also be of a local type. The chicken can only be free-range or the bird must actually be a partridge.

“At the end of the program, there is an evaluation to decide which group is the best. To motivate citizens, prizes of money are provided. The assessment is not only done on the material, but also on the cleanliness of the neighborhood of the RT and the toilets of each group member\'s house,” said Marci Henderina Tanaos, 33, a farmer from Oh’aem 1 village, who was one of the festival’s initiators.

Marci said the event became a kind of thanksgiving and annual evaluation of the resilience of residents to grow local food. From the quality of the ingredients presented, the level of perseverance can be seen. The cleanliness of the toilets is considered to indicate the cleanliness of the residents who prepare the food. The winner can be an example for other participants.

“Being a winner or not is actually not the main thing. The benefits of food grown on local farms or yards are more than that. There would be a greater future for our children and grandchildren when we can make use of [our land],” Marci said.

Miska Nisipeni Kenat, 36, a resident of Oh’aem 1, has benefited a lot by growing food since 2017. The nutritional needs of children have always been met. She can get many variations of food without spending much.

“I often eat corn mixed with various types of vegetables grown by myself. If I want fruit, I just take it for myself, from coconuts to oranges. "When I was pregnant, I didn’t consume factory food,” she said.

Anomaly

Oh\'aem 1 village is like an anomaly in Kupang regency. The food is abundant. The farms are always overgrown with vegetables and fruits. This situation suppresses the number of cases of tengkes there. There were only two children who were still recorded with stunting, down from five cases a year ago. In neighboring villages, the number can be many times higher.

Tengkes is still haunting NTT. This eastern part of Indonesia had the

highest prevalence rate in the country in 2018. Last year, stunting among children under 5 years in NTT reached 50,106 cases and there were 35,262 cases of extreme stunting. In the same period, in Kupang regency there were 2,286 stunted children and 3,047 very stunted toddlers scattered around 165 villages.

Marci is behind the success of the Oh’aem 1 village in reducing the incidence of tengkes. Since 2010, along with her husband Mesak Tanaos, 40, Marci has been actively promoting the planting of food in people’s yards. This year marks the eighth year Mesak was the head of the village of Oh’aem 1.

One of Marci’s concerns is that many people’s yards and farms, whose average size is one hectare, have not been used to their maximum potential. They are only planted with corn and cassava during the rainy season. When dry, there are even residents who leave their gardens abandoned. They choose to be migrant workers, going to Jakarta, or just be motorcycle taxi drivers to earn income.

“In fact, if the land is planted, residents can prosper from their own land,” said the mother of three children. Marci didn’t just talk. She acted as an example by planting local food on her own land. In the rainy season, in addition to corn, she also plants sweet potatoes, celery and chili. When dry, the land is not abandoned. She plants a variety of vegetables and beans. She got the knowledge from her parents who were also farmers.

“Corn plants need to be watered at least twice a week, while for vegetables they should be watered twice a day, which is at 6 a.m. and at 4 p.m.,” said Marci. She was assisted by five of her neighbors in cultivating land and caring for her farm. Paid Rp 30,000 per day, the workers did the same things at their own homes.

However, it is not easy to change people’s habits. Marci’s steps were often doubted and deviated from. Her call is often not heard. “We do not want to give up. We choose to become independent with our own gardens,” said Marci.

Be an example

Her efforts slowly paid off. Three years ago, people started asking questions and wanting to learn. Now, the majority of villagers are interested in following similar steps.

The persistence of Marci and her husband attracted the interest of a non-governmental organization, Perkumpulan Pikul. This institution is involved in promoting food security in NTT. From Pikul, Marci got a lot of new knowledge about food variations for ideal nutritional intake.

One of the implementations is through the Pelangi Meja program. It is a form of education guide that lists a number of types of food. There are five different colors in the table. Red is for food containing carbohydrates such as corn and sweet potatoes, blue for meat side dishes, yellow for vegetable side dishes such as beans, purple for various vegetables and green for fruits.

In addition, there is also assistance for 13 dasawisma groups in Oh’aem 1 village to be self-sufficient in food. They must provide 300 square meters of land to be used for farming.

Increasingly confident in her abilities, Marci is more active in speaking on various occasions. She started by visiting residents’ houses and now does promotions at events attended by mothers, like at an integrated service post (posyandu). She also has a healthy life attitude at home, especially for sanitation and hygiene. Nutrition and sanitation are the keys to fighting the tengkes that is widespread in NTT.

Being successful in her village, going forward she wanted to convey the message of the importance of being independent to the residents of the neighboring village. Publicity and practice are carried out at local food festivals at the end of each year.

“The hope is that many residents are increasingly active in processing or planting even during the dry season so that families can have better food

security. There should be no more residents who are completely malnourished because everything can be obtained from their own gardens,” Marci said.

Marci Henderina Tanaos

Born: Oelbanu, NTT, March 16, 1985 Education:

- SDN Oelbanu, Kupang (graduated in 2000) - SMPN 1 Lelogama, Kupang (graduated in 2003)

- Package C Program (graduated in 2014)