Indonesia is a country having abundant natural resources, including nutritious plants as a source of food and medicine. Along with the increasing public awareness of the importance of healthy living, there is a great shift in the demand of food. At present, people do not only want foods that have good nutritional composition as well as attractive appearance and taste, but also the ones that have certain physiological functions for the body. The foods that have such functions are known as functional foods. One ingredient that has the potential to be developed into functional food is mocaf flour. It is made from cassava which is made from the fermentation principle by modifying the cassava cells. This study aims to reveal the conditions for the development of the functional food industry made from mocaf flour in Indonesia using the value chain approach. This study was a qualitative research by using multiple case studies along the value chain. The data were collected from review of secondary data, in-depth interviews, and observations in each case study. The case study locus was the center of the mocaf-based food industry in West Java. The results showed that (i) the mocaf-based functional food industry in Indonesia was not developed; (ii) the development of mocaf-based industries was constrained by the high cost of cassava raw materials; (iii) the productivity of cassava plants was still low; (iv) the role of R & D institutions was very much needed; and (v) government intervention is needed.JEL Classification:  L88, O00, Q18

Footwear is one of Indonesia's leading export commodities. However, this achievement is still far from the target set by the Indonesian Ministry of Industry, namely growth of 10% annually. The aim this study are to analysis of Indonesia's competitiveness of footwear products exported to the United States, factors affect Indonesian footwear exports to the US and the Islamic economy view competitiveness and the factors affecting exports. The method used is a quantitative method. Using the RCA analysis and multiple linear regression analysis. The data taken from this research is secondary data. The results showed that the RCA index>1, then the export of Indonesian footwear products to the US was competitive in the world. Partially, US GDP and the exchange rate have a positive and significant effect on Indonesian footwear exports to the US, prices have a positive and insignificant effect on Indonesian footwear exports to the US, and production has a negative and insignificant effect on Indonesian footwear exports to the US. Simultaneously, US GDP, exchange rates, prices and production together influence the export of Indonesian footwear to the US. Competition from an Islamic economic perspective is highly recommended, but it must be healthy as explained in Q.S Al-Baqarah:148 where every country is prohibited from committing fraud, one of which is the dumping technique. Keywords: RCA, US GDP, Exchange Rates, Prices, Production, Footwear Exports, Islamic Economic Perspective.

In the recent decade, governments have utilized business incubators to generate new ventures, facilitate new products and services development, and support the regional economic development. The current trend of business incubator proliferation brings out the needs to comprehend the effective way of incubating new ventures. However, previous research has overlooked on understanding how the best way to manage the incubator at certain levels. Thus, this research aims to address the hiatus by identifying best-practices of business incubation among incubators from several countries in Europe and Asia. A comparative approach of content analysis and a single case study is applied to unpack incubation practices patterns. Incubation best-practices included initiating awareness of new entrepreneurial opportunities, enhancing product development and providing resource, venturing competence evolvement, creating collaborative partnership, settling norms and role models, and building company reputation and product legitimacy. Furthermore, this research also found level differences of incubation practices regarding their comprehensiveness.

Abstract. Agustiyani D, Dewi TK, Laili N, Nditasari A, Antonius S. 2021. Exploring biofertilizer potential of plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria candidates from different plant ecosystems. Biodiversitas 22: 2691-2698. Plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) have been widely used as inoculants to increase the growth of crops. This study aims to evaluate the effective PGPR strains according to their capability in various plant growth-promoting activities in vitro. Ten rhizosphere soil samples were obtained from several plant ecosystems in Bangkinang, Kampar, Sumatra Island, Indonesia. A total of 42 bacteria were isolated and tested for three plant growth–promoting activities i.e., phosphate solubilization, indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) production, and N fixation. Out of 42 isolates, 26 were positive for phosphate solubilization, 11 were positive for IAA production, and five were positive for N fixation. The qualitative and quantitative analysis of plant growth–promoting activities revealed that the highest phosphate solubilizing isolate was PK.4.2 (SI 4.33); the highest IAA-producing isolate was I.4.2 (73.1 ppm); while the highest N-fixing ability was NFB.1.1. According to the seed bioassay results, the shoot and root length of bok choy (Brassica rapa) seedlings were significantly enhanced with the PGPR isolates treatment. The highest shoot length (2.53 cm) was observed among seeds treated with I.4.2 isolate, followed by PK.6.1 (2.45 cm) and I.5.3 (2.07 cm). The NFB.1.1 isolate promoted the longest root length (6.4 cm), although this was similar with I.5.3 isolate (6.11 cm). Two isolates that showed significant plant growth–promoting activities were analyzed using 16S rDNA sequences. The two isolates had a close evolutionary relationship with genus Sinomonas strain Cw 108 (I.4.2) and Arthrobacter (I.5.3.).

Bacillus sp. being industrially important organisms produces a wide variety of extracellular enzymes including protease. Bacillus sp. 140-B isolated from rhizosphere area of pineapple plantation in Lampung Province, Indonesia was tested for production of protease on skim milk agar medium. The aims of this study were to characterize and investigate some properties of protease activity from Bacillus sp. 140-B. Bacillus sp. 140-B showed protease activity qualitatively by clear zone diameter of 15.0 mm and the highest protease activity was 35.02 Unit ⋅ mg −1 protein at 14 h after incubation.Some properties of protease activities from Bacillus sp. 140-B including effects of temperature, pH and several metals were observed in this experiment. The protease activity from Bacillus sp. 140-B had optimum pH of 7,0 and the optimum temperature was 60 ∘ C. Several metals which were evaluated on protease activity showed that Mn could increase protease activity, while other metals (Ca, Co, and Hg) showed decreasing protease activity of Bacillus sp. 140-B.