Dichotomy of Energy Plantation and Legumes Plantation

There is a dichotomy between friends in livestock and forestry today about these legumes. From animal husbandry, they see leaves as a source of feed protein from plants and from forestry, they see wood as a source of wood that is easy to cultivate with high productivity. In the forestry sector, the wood is usually used as a renewable energy source such as wood chips, wood pellets, wood briquettes or charcoal briquettes. Forestry grows thousands of hectares of these legumes such as gliricidia with a wood orientation while the leaves are considered a by-product or waste from their plantation side. By utilizing the wood and leaves, it means getting out of this dichotomy, creating a new paradigm and being able to overcome food and energy problems or optimize the legume plantation or energy plantation (whole tree utilization) of thousands of hectares.

In addition to functioning as a legume plantation for animal feed, especially ruminants (sheep, goats, cattle, buffalo), as well as biomass fuel as above, the same plantation can also be used as a raw material for synthetic fiber board, for more details, please read here . Meanwhile, as the bioeconomic era is getting closer, the need for bioenergy, especially wood pellets, is increasing, the need for animal feed, especially ruminants which is part of the chain of human food needs is also increasing and indeed the growth of the earth's population is also increasing, and the need for biomaterials such as synthetic boards is also increasing. Therefore, the establishment of energy plantations or legume plantations or biomass plantations is very important, strategic and multi-beneficial. Based on these conditions, it is not impossible that in the near future the plantation will become a national and even global trend.

Opportunity to Export Animal Feed Protein Sources to Europe

Meat and milk are sources of protein for human obtained from animals, especially ruminants, then meat and eggs from poultry and meat from fish. Availability of sufficient animal protein is needed. Protein deficiency will be bad for health. The livestock industry plays an important role for the adequacy of animal protein today. To produce animal protein in the form of meat and milk, a protein source, namely vegetable protein, is needed in the feed source for the ruminant livestock. Gliricidia and calliandra leaves from energy plantations are a source of protein for the ruminants (sheep, goats and cows). The development of energy plantations should also encourage the livestock industry. This is important for the makers or entrepreneurs of the energy plantation to understand.

Learning from European conditions, according to a study conducted by FEFAC (European Feed Manufacturers' Federation), there is a protein deficit condition in the feed industry sector in Europe and for that they have made a number of efforts to obtain environmentally friendly feed protein sources and sustainable. Deficit is a condition where the consumption or use of protein for the feed has exceeded its production. This means that European production in the form of protein sources for animal feed is still far from its needs so that imports cannot be avoided as a result. Although it is estimated that they will not be able to replace 100% of feed protein sources by one mean alone, which as long as most are imported but reducing this dependence with local production of feed protein would be very helpful. Another motivation is to reduce dependence on protein sources from transgenic materials (GMOs), namely soybean.

Their first effort was the use of PAP (processed animal protein). The use of PAP is indeed high in nutrition, and the source of PAP for the feed is chicken and pork. Although a rule has been made that chicken PAP is not allowed to feed chickens and pork PAP is not allowed to feed pigs plus a tool to detect it, in practice this is difficult to be implemented. This is because feed mills that operate are generally multi-purpose feed so that it can be used for various types of livestock. Very few feed mills make specialty feeds. In fact, if it occurs, for example, PAP chickens for chicken feed and PAP pigs for pig feed, then a disease may occur in the livestock. An example is in the case of mammalian meat and bone meal (MBM). In 1996 with the crisis of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) because it was related to feeding from MBM for ruminant feed. The BSE-infected meat causes Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans, which poses a high risk to the human food chain. After the epidemic spread, the use of MBM in animal feed was banned. This regulation causes a high dependence on imported raw materials such as soybean meal for the continuity of the supply of meat, milk and eggs.

The second effort is protein production from insect farming. Although it can be done and a number of insect species have also been approved, the fact is that currently there are very few insect farms there, so it will still take a long time to produce sufficient volumes as a source of protein in animal feed. The source of protein from these insects is mainly for fish feed. The third effort from energy plantations is from rapeseed trees. Rapeseed meal is another source of vegetable protein. But the availability of rapeseed meal depends on European biofuel policy. Canola oil is the raw material for biodiesel in Europe. The European biofuel policy is contained in the Renewable Energy Directive 2020-2030 where the contribution of biofuels from plants for the target use in the transportation sector is up to a maximum of 7%.

The fourth effort from the rejected and expired products of the food industry. The rejected and expired products of the food industry it’s mean from the food and food ingredients industries, such as the biscuit industry, instant noodles, chocolate bars, pasta and so on. But what is meant is not food waste from restaurants, or catering. EFFPA, the European Former Foodstuff Processing Association estimates that in the European Union around 3.5 million tons of food waste is processed into animal feed every year. The European Union encourages the use of rejected and expired food, including issuing guidelines to reduce food waste to become feed, because it is not fit for human consumption. They have also discussed protein sources from micro algae or single-celled plants, but they are not a priority at this time due to quality and some limitations. 

The importance of realizing the potential as well as improving the vision for optimizing the energy plantation. GMO problems, for example, the use of gliricidia leaves can be the solution, for more details read here. “Quality protein” is important because not all proteins are equal. Several parameters for protein quality are the amino acid profile and the absence of anti-nutritional substances. For example, soybean meal has high scores for all protein quality parameters including palatability, digestibility and safety. A case that can also be used as a reference, in 2007 there was a withdrawal of pet food because it was contaminated with melamine and cyanuric acid (which is high in nitrogen content and identified as crude protein) in protein elements that cause kidney failure. 

The use of nitrogen from the above chemical is also carried out in agricultural products and has also led to the withdrawal of agricultural products from China in South Africa, the European Union and the United States. Even America ordered the USDA to inspect all agricultural products from China. In 2008 and 2009 China focused on eliminating the problem of counterfeiting or mixing and the effects of the crisis. In 2010 a revised version of the feed and feed additive regulations was published to further ensure quality and safety. Even though China is the largest feed producer in the world, the need for feed raw materials still relies on imports, especially flour/soybean meal to support food needs in the form of meat, milk and eggs for around 1.3 billion people.

From a number of efforts by the European Union to plan for self-sufficiency in feed protein sources, it turns out that the source of protein from rapeseed energy plantataions has become a European priority at this time. Meanwhile, with Indonesia's condition which has a large area of land, there are many energy plantations that can be created, even the Ministry of Environment and Forestry has planned 12.7 million hectares for energy plantations as an effort to support the cofiring program at coal power plants in Indonesia more detail read here. Energy plantation by-products will also be abundant. The production of this leaf can be used as an export commodity to Europe, because the need is large. Animal feed production in Europe is estimated at 160 million tons per year or 16% of the world with 5000 units of feed factories. With the consumption of protein in the feed in the range of 30%, the need will reach 48 million tons. When the domestic feed industry has not been able to absorb it, export is the best choice.

Ruminant is herbivore so that their diet comes from plants, the case of MBM in Europe can be a valuable lesson that feeding from mammals actually creates new problems. Moreover, if the food category is najis, then the livestock will become jalalah which are prohibited (haram) to be consumed. Meanwhile, the case of mixing with hazardous chemicals that occurred in China with melamine and cyanuric acid is only to trick the protein content so that it looks high and is also harmful to the health of the human body. Islam is very concerned about food or food issues, even in the Qur'an Letter of 'Abasa: 24, Allah commands humans to pay attention to their food. The food that enters our stomach must be halal and thoyyib (good). Foods that contain harmful substances that can poison the body are not thoyyib foods. And one of the consequences of haram (prohibited) food is a barrier to prayer being answered.