Sago Palm

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license.This book covers a wide variety of events and technologies concerning the sago palm, ranging from its botanical characteristics, culture, and use to social conditions in the places where it is grown, with the aims of both providing a record of the results of research and enabling these results to benefit the society as a whole. The subjects include the sago palm, related species, differentiation of species of starch-producing palm, habitat, morphological characteristics, physiological characteristics, growth characteristics, culture and management, productivity of carbon dioxide, starch extraction and manufacture, characteristics and utilization of starch, and cultural anthropological and folkloristic aspects. Problems such as food shortages due to increasing populations, global warming and climate change, and decreasing reserves of oil and other underground resources, have become increasingly serious in recent years. As we move into the 21st century, it is now incumbent on us to develop recycling-based social systems that are both built on the foundations of environmental preservation and the sustainable use of resources and also take account of food safety and improving health and welfare, and in this context there are great hopes for the use of plants, which are a reproducible resource. It is against this backdrop that the sago palm, a plant that is native to Southeast Asia and the South Pacific, is now rising to prominence. This palm will grow in brackish water and is adaptable to impoverished soils and marshland where crop culture is problematic, and has the outstanding advantage that its trunk stores large amounts of starch, providing harvests of up to 300 kg per tree. Its nature as a perennial plant makes it less vulnerable to the effects of climate change, and as it is vegetatively propagated, once planted it can be harvested semi-indefinitely. As it is not affected by disease or insects, its cultivation does not require the use of agricultural chemicals, making it safe for both ecosystems and humans. It can grow up to 20 meters in height, and as such a large plant it absorbs a large volume of carbon dioxide, helping to counteract global warming. In its countries of origin it is used as a staple food and in the manufacture of other foodstuffs, and it can also be used as a raw material for ethanol and in the manufacture of biodegradable plastics. It is the sort of environmentally friendly plant that is exactly what is needed to meet contemporary demands for the creation of a recycling-based society.