Bogor (Antara Bali) - Agriculture Minister Suswono officially opened Bogor Rabbit Festival 2012 at the Animal Husbandry Research and Development Center (Puslitbangnak) in Bogor, West Java, on Sunday.
In his opening address, the agriculture minister said rabbit breeding offered an enormous potential of supporting national economy and food security.
"Rabbit breeding has a great potential because it is relatively easy and requires no extensive land so anybody can do it," Minister Suswono said.
Besides, he pointed out that it also had the by-product such as fertilizer, leather, nugget, meatball, and sausage.
"Rabbit breeding will have a tremendous potential if it is developed optimally to support national economy and food security," he reiterated.
But the minister admitted that the level of cultivation of rabbit for food sources in Indonesia was still low because most of the people had yet to be familiar with such a business.
Therefore he called for a sustainable familiarization of rabbit breeding in order to arouse the people's interest in cultivating the animal for food.
Meanwhile, Bogor Rabbit Festival organizing committee spokesman Bambang Sarkoro said the festival was the first ever event to be held in Bogor and participated in by around 150 participants who displayed more than 750 rabbits.
"Most of the participants in the Bogor Rabbit Festival 2012 are rabbit breeders and lovers from Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Tangerang, Bekasi (Jabodetabek), and some other areas in Indonesia," Bambang said.
He explained that the objectives of the festival were among others to introduce rabbits as multipurpose animal, to disseminate information and knowledge about rabbits, and to develop rabbit products that could improve people's economy and welfare.(T007)
