Development and application of isotopes and radiation technology in Indonesia

The National Atomic Energy Agency (BATAN) of the Republic of Indonesia is the highest agency in the country, charged amongst others with the development and application of Isotopes and Radiation Technology as a tool in the search for the optimal solution of various national development problems, such as those encountered in the fields of Agriculture, Livestock, health/medicine, Industry, Environment and Energy. The acquisition and development of the scientific and technical expertise, R and D facilities/instruments and infrastructure have been achieved primarily through bilateral and multilateral collaborative activities with domestic, foreign and international institutions. On the basis of the achieved R and D results, the acquired techniques have been progressively transferred to the end-users and applied in solving scientific-technical problems in the aforementioned fields. This paper gives a brief overview of the present status and future trend of activities in the development and applications of isotopes and radiation technology in Agriculture, Livestock and Industry in Indonesia. In the field of Agriculture the research activities are focussed on obtaining and disseminating new crop varieties with desired specific characteristics and on increasing soil fertilizer efficiency. These research results and those on livestock feed supplementation formula and disease prevention have been applied in helping farmers in various parts of Indonesia to increase their productivity. In industry, irradiation technology for food preservation and sterilization has been successfully transferred to the commercial companies. The same is also true for Non-Destructive Examination, Radioactive Tracer and Radiation Based Process Monitoring Techniques. Natural and radioactive isotopes have been widely used also in hydrology, sedimentology and geothermal studies. Highlights of the results are presented and discussed