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he Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) have chosen West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) for a pilot project to develop a blue economy-based integrated economic zone following the province’s continued efforts to push for the development of seaweed, corn and cattle farming to ensure food resiliency.

The blue economy is a term used to describe an economic model based on achieving abundance from locally available resources.

The move was based on a joint study by the FAO and the ministry on blue economy implementation, the results of which were handed over to the NTB administration at an event in Senggigi, West Lombok, on Wednesday.

“The documents will serve as a guideline for NTB to implement an integrated blue economy approach. NTB is a pilot project and its future achievements can be adopted by other regions,” Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry’s aquaculture director general, Slamet Soebjakto, said on Wednesday.

“The blue economy initiative in NTB will also attract investment from the private sector, which will help generate more jobs,” he added.

The pilot project scheme is expected to help NTB develop blue economy-based productions of several commodities, including seaweed, which is among three premier commodities listed under the local program Pijar, which was launched in 2011.

The NTB has the potential to cultivate 1.2 tons of seaweed, which can be used to produce food and non-food products.

The national production of seaweed reaches 12 million tons annually, however, the majority is sent abroad.

“So far, it is seaweed, but the cultivation of other commodities, including shrimp and grouper, will also be developed,” Slamet added.

NTB administration secretary Rosiady Sayuti revealed that its industry agency had pushed for numerous micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) to develop seaweed-based food, including dodol (fudge-like sweet) and coffee.

In Lombok, a factory producing cosmetics made from seaweed is set to begin operations in December,

“It [the pilot project scheme] is in line with the NTB Pijar program on cattle, corn and seaweed,” Rosiady added.

Blue economy development, Rosiady said, was indeed one of the factors being considered by the NTB administration as it drafted a bylaw that would regulate the development of coastal areas and small islands.

Mark Smulders, an FAO representative in Indonesia, said the blue economy initiative in NTB, “can serve as a best practice for other [entities] at regional, national and international levels.”

In 2013, the FAO and the Agriculture Ministry introduced a conservation program for corn agriculture, a premier commodity in NTB and neighboring East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), to improve small farmer adaptation to climate change, in a program that involved more than 260 farmer groups across the two provinces.

The conservation technique resulted in maize yields that were, on average, 77 percent higher than conventional farming practices.

As of now, the technique has been adopted by more than 650 farmer groups with more than 12,500 members across the two provinces, some of which are in drought-prone areas.