Started From Mental

Have you ever thought about our farming world? Most likely not, or maybe we don’t pay more attention on it even though every day we never consume other product except  processed agricultural products. Agriculture is very vital for humans to survive especially food and clothing. It is no longer a trend in Indonesian agriculture if we refer just to organic farming with a wide range of organic product offerings and the superiority, however a basic change of mind and lifestyle towards a better and healthier life, not only for humans but for the nature itself instead.

Stube-HEMAT Yogyakarta as a student mentoring institution see the importance of young generation especially students to understand, realize and involve in the surrounding agricultural issues. Therefore on April 14, 2018, taken place in Omah Cengkir, at 10.00 AM- 14.20 PM, an initial discussion related to organic farming was held and it was continued with an exposure activity to organic farm in Pakem. This discussion invited Y.B. Cahya Widiyanto, M.Si., Ph.D., a lecturer of Psychology at Sanata Dharma University and Antoni Kusuma Wardhana, S.Psi., M.M., a practitioner and activist of marketing for organic agricultural products.

Mr. Cahya, known as Mr. Johan, focused more on directing the participants to improve their mental and mindset in order to build organic mentality having concern on nature and long-term thinking, not just short term thinking because organic farming is a long process of how human becomes aware and concerned of nature and health.

Next, Mr. Dhana delivered his session to open the participants' insight how to offer organic products more interesting through an innovation touch in order to be more market-acceptable. "Actually catching opportunities in the agricultural sector is not difficult, but it can not be said to be easy as well. Keep trying and doing innovation are the key to have successful results", he explained.

"I used to manage work from up to downstream by myself and I found out it failed. So what I do next is focus on one field, that is, organic products marketing. Let farmers plant because they understand more better about it and let the chef to cook the material to be a unique dish”, he stated.

After the discussion, the participants observed an organic farmland managed by Dhana. The owner of organic farm, Ari explained that this organic farming started from land management, land preparation, water management and finally process to obtain organic certificates.

Ari’s land is planted with several types of plants such as lettuce and tomatoes. Participants enthusiastically explored the farm and asked much about fertilizer, land preparation, and crops.

This activity is a serie of Organic Farming Training which will be held on May 4-6, 2018. Either interesting or not for you, agriculture undoubtedly determines the quality of life and human sustainability. So make sure that young people take part in the training and farming world. (MAR).