2016 Volume 60 Issue 2 Pages 65-70
Recently, changes in dietary life and rising awareness of agricultural food safety and health driven by economic growth have enhanced popular interest in organic rice production in Indonesia. Farmers are also showing a growing interest in organic rice cultivation since it can be sold at higher prices. In meeting such new demands, knowledge of chemical properties of rice is beneficial as fundamental information. Therefore, palatability-related characteristics, vibrational spectra and contents of water, ash, total C, total N and metal elements of milled rice that is popular in Indonesia, adding milled Japonica rice as control, were investigated in this study. The palatability scores of Indica rice were generally low, but those of organic rice varieties were slightly higher than conventional rice. No definite difference for FT-IR spectra was found between Japonica rice and Indica rice. Regarding total nitrogen content, organic rice showed low values, presumably reflecting reduced nitrogen input because of the use of organic fertilizers. Japonica rice showed higher contents of magnesium, silicon, iron, and copper and lower contents of rubidium and molybdenum compared to Indonesian rice. Organic rice varieties showed clearly lower contents of iron and zinc. It seems clear that if conversion to organic farming proceeds, then it will alter the dynamics of inorganic nutrients as well. Future research undertaken to do detailed content analysis pertaining to quality and palatability of Indica rice is needed, taking note of different cultivation methods.
