Climate-Smart Agriculture and Millennial

The government is starting to put trust in the millennials. It can be seen by the arrangement of their special staff varies with millennials. Millennials are now considered to be very diligent and more active in learning many things and integrating them with current technological advances. This further strengthens that millennials are capable of controlling many sectors, one of which is the agricultural sector.

In the news entitled “Pesan Mentan ke Millennial: Tak Perlu Keahlian Khusus Berkiprah di Sektor Pertanian” or translated to “Message from the Minister of Agriculture to the Millennial: No Need for Special Skills Acting in the Agriculture Sector”, published by Liputan6.com, Minister of Agriculture, Syahrul Yasin Limpo said: “To be a professional of existing business development and agriculture does not require special skills, but it requires determination and will. So, the engineers, medical scholars, law graduates, actually open to become farmers or existing farm business groups.

Minister of Agriculture also added that agriculture is a business opportunity that is very open at the moment, supported by space and approaches to technological advances that are so rapid. He is also ready to open new spaces for millennials who are interested in agriculture.

In early March 2020, the Agricultural Human Resources Development and Counseling Agency (BPPSP) held a meeting with 30 Millennial Farmer Entrepreneurs in agricultural development in Bogor. Quoted from Liputan6.com, this Millennial Entrepreneur Farmer has been named a Millennial Ambassador because the value of their production and income has been categorized as successful even many have already been exported.

The advantage is that Millennial Entrepreneur Farmers are entrepreneur farmers, but the average age category is under 40 years and is therefore classified as millennial. This millennial ambassador comes from farmers, agricultural entrepreneurs from various commodities, such as Horticulture, Animal Husbandry, Plantation, Food Crops, Breeder Breeding, and Processing of Agricultural Products that they have successfully marketed to foreign countries.

One biogas user who has successfully used bio-slurry as a support for his agriculture, the Antarctic Continent, including millennials that not only plays a role in agriculture but also mitigates the climate crisis with biogas. The continent and the family have a business named Hamengku Sekaring Bhumi Farm (farming and dairy farming). Produces products such as coffee, durian, avocado, milk, etc. Besides that, they also plant and sell solid odot grasses which are fertilized by solid bio-slurry to feed dairy cows.

Since the middle of 2016, he has been a Kertajaya Cooperative partner as a provider of odot grass for the dairy feed of Kertajaya Cooperative members with a contract system. Owned grass area of ​​3-4 hectares planted with odot and all the results are sold to KUD Kertajaya. The grass is bought at a market price of between IDR 300 – IDR 450 / kg odot. The price of grass depends on the season, in the dry season the price of grass is expensive while in the rainy season the price of grass tends to fall. 1 Ha of land can produce 5,000 kg (dry) to 7,000 kg (rain) odot. Net profit from selling odots around IDR 40,000,000 / year. Because odot is fertilized using solid bio-slurry, it saves costs to buy NPK fertilizer around IDR 2,280,000 / year and savings in spending on buying Urea fertilizer around IDR 475,000 / year. At home, Benua also opened Odot Grass Outlet which is also a Kertajaya KUD partner so that it only serves the purchase of special odot grass to cooperative members.

The continent also felt directly the savings of LPG cylinders from the use of biogas, because every day had to cook food for 15 people (5 family members plus 10 people who work in cages and fields) and to heat water if they want to milk and sterilize dairy equipment so they can spend 12 kg LPG cylinder in 3-4 days, a total of 8 LPG cylinders in 1 month. The price per 12 kg LPG cylinder is around IDR 150,000. So that the total expenditure to buy LPG IDR 1,200,000/month, now there is no longer a need to buy LPG anymore because there is already biogas.

27 March 2020