Students’ Dialogue on Agriculture Problems

Omah Limasan, 12 April 2014

Agriculture is a very important aspect for the nation sustainability, however young people and students tend to be uninterested in agricultural topics. Indonesia with 245 million population demands a large amount of food supply, especially rice. The dependency on rice actually is  an irony since the nation has many potencies of food diversity and agriculture. In such condition, every component of the nation must be smart to evaluate and then develop the potency of non-rice food. In addition, Indonesian agriculture also faces other problems, such as the usage of synthetic chemical substances, land conversion from agriculture into  housing or industry areas, and policy to import foods easily.

To respond the problems above and to initiate a training program on Organic Agriculture and Food Diversity, Stube-HEMAT Yogyakarta held a student discussion on Saturday, April 12, 2014. The discussion was followed by dozens of students from various study backgrounds. They learned and analized some agricultural problems by reading newspaper and gave their opinion about it, and tried to correlated the  occurs in his/her homeland. Some of the news topics are Food Hazards, The Failure of Food Self-Sufficiency, Food Import The more freely, Pesticides and Mistaken Thought of the Farmer, Being Eliminated from Homeland, and To Begin with Fruit-trees.

Noel, from Alor, East Nusa Tenggara, studying in APMD said, "Agriculture in Alor doesn’t optimally managed, people cultivate their land just to fulfill their daily needs, tried not to extent the production to supply  market demand." While Christian, from West Borneo, studying Informatics in UKDW, revealed, "in Borneo many farmlands have converted to plantations, especially oil-palm plantations in order to increase local revenues." Furthermore, Yarti, an APMD’s student from Sumba revealed, "The culture of mutual cooperation is carried out when working on the rice fields in Southwest Sumba. Unluckily, the usage of chemical pesticides is actually done by many educated persons with one reason to lessen cost and for practical reasons." Hery Gardjalay, students from Dobo, Southeast Maluku who study at Law Faculty in Janabadra University, discussed planting fruit trees in coastal area of Seribu Islands. Further he told that his homeland having many coastal areas has not been used optimally to improve the local communities revenue. Limited ability and knowledge of human resources is to be the main cause.

This discussion concluded, first, the increase of the conversion of agricultural land for industrial and housing must be seriously considered by the government through regulation enforcement of land use and territorial spatial concepts. Second, the government should commit to farmers through regulation and continual assistance to increase the quality of human resources, especially farmers. Third, developing food diversity, especially local food, involving academics and practitioners to work directly and interact with each local community. Fourth, promoting community-based organic agriculture for ecosystem and environment sustainability. Fifth, pioneering a youth reform movement to love agriculture. (TRU).