Can Agricultural Apps Bring Indonesia

• by Kanis Dursin (jakarta)
• Thursday, December 10, 2020
• Inter Press Service

“I began utilizing the applying in early September after I planted rice on zero.7 hectare of irrigated land,” the 41-year-old instructed IPS final month in a cellphone interview from Bondowoso regency in East Java, a one-hour flight east of the capital Jakarta.

“I can’t inform but if it helps enhance manufacturing or not, however I’m very pleased with the know-how. It helped me detect and establish a rice illness in late September. We had at all times referred to as rice illnesses brown planthopper earlier than and used the identical medicines to manage the illness. Due to the know-how, we now know totally different rice illnesses and may use acceptable pesticides to take care of them,” stated the daddy of two.

Developed by start-up tech firm PT Mitra Sejahtera Membangun Bangsa (MSMB), RiTx Bertani is designed to assist farmers take care of local weather change and different issues they might have by way of digital know-how. RiTx comes from the phrases agriculture know-how, whereas Bertani actually means farming.

One other farmer, Kurlufi, in the meantime, stated he downloaded the applying in 2018 however uninstalled it shortly after as he discovered it much less useful for his chilli crop. Earlier this yr, he determined to reinstall it as the worth of chilli abruptly dropped.

“The value of chilli has dropped sharply because the coronavirus hit the nation in March. I seemed for various crops when the applying steered that my area was appropriate for cucumber,” the 42-year-old father of two instructed IPS from Banyuwangi regency, additionally in East Java.

The coronavirus pandemic, which has killed 18,366 individuals as of at present (Dec.10) has pressured individuals to do business from home and plant greens at their backyards, driving down the worth of meals crops because of low demand.

Kurlufi owns zero.95 hectares of farm land. For the reason that COVID-19 pandemic hit the nation, he has planted cucumber on zero.6 hectares of his area for 2 successive seasons, harvesting eight kilograms of cucumber seeds within the first season and 18 kilograms within the second. Every season final for nearly three months.

“I offered the seeds for Rp450,000 (US$32) per kilogram to an area firm,” he stated.

“I discover the know-how very helpful for individuals who don’t have any prior or little expertise in farming. In my case, it helps me determine what crops to plant and when to rent staff to do the pollination because it offers climate forecasts for the following six to seven days,” Kurlufi added.

Mustafa and Kurlufi are two of 11,000 farmers in eight provinces in Indonesia utilizing RiTx Bertani, one in all dozens of agricultural apps at present accessible as the federal government promotes Good Farming four.zero or digitised agriculture.

MSMB mission supervisor Rizal Dwi Prastyo stated they’ve each hardware — within the type of on-field sensors, that are related to the web — and software program — within the type of the RiTx Bertani app.

“Customers need to submit detailed details about their fields, together with the scale, borders, latitude, and longitude for the sensors to find. As soon as the sensors detect the fields, they instantly measure the soil’s moisture and air temperature and feeds these info to the web,” Prastyo instructed IPS from Yogyakarta, a 50-minute flight east of Jakarta.

One sensor, which prices roughly $2,700, covers an space of 10 hectares of land.

Primarily based on the soil’s present moisture, Prastyo stated, agriculture specialists on the firm present options to farmers by way of the app on what crops go well with their land finest for the following planting season.

“All through the season, the sensors measure soil moisture and air humidity each 10 minutes and add them into the web. Customers can learn the feeds by way of the app underneath the sensor menu. Farmers want this sort of info to use fertiliser or spray pesticides, if wanted,” he continued.

The applying, Prastyo stated, additionally permits farmers to file all farming exercise and save them underneath a file menu in order that they know precisely when subsequent to use fertiliser or spray pesticides or pesticides. Farmers may ask for added help by way of the net discussion board.

Activist Stated Iqbal of non-governmental organisation Folks’s Coalition for Meals Sovereignty welcomed the usage of apps in farming however stated he doubted that digitised agriculture would enhance the welfare of farmers and assist the nation obtain meals sovereignty within the quick future.

“Digitising the agriculture sector is unavoidable now however the root of the matter is farmers discover no incentive to spice up manufacturing. Why? As a result of they management on-farm actions solely, whereas upstream and downstream actions are managed by massive companies. It has grow to be a public data that intermediaries or merchants earn greater than twice of farmers’ earnings,” he stated.

He additionally stated most farmers in Indonesia had been small holders, with every proudly owning a median of zero.2 hectares of irrigated land. “Due to that situation, many farmers select to promote their productive land and work as low-cost labour, additional lowering irrigated fields, particularly on Java Island,” Iqbal stated.

One other activist, Tejo Wahyu Jatmiko of the Alliance for Affluent Village, agreed with Iqbal, saying that Indonesia’s agriculture sector was going through two main points – decreases in each the variety of farmers and irrigated rice fields.

Quoting a report by the Central Statistics Company or BPS, Jatmiko instructed a webinar in Jakarta that the nation had solely 33.four million farmers in 2019, down from 35.6 million in 2015, whereas irrigated fields stood at 10.68 million hectares in 2019, down by 700 hectares from 2018.

These situations have resulted in fluctuations in rice manufacturing, forcing the federal government to import rice to satisfy the wants of over 270 million individuals. BPS experiences present that the nation imported 444,508 tons of rice in 2019, down from 2.25 million tons in 2018, 305,270 tons in 2017, and 1.28 million tons in 2016.

Nonetheless, by way of sustainable agriculture, Indonesia has a rating of 61.1 out of 100,the place 100 is the best sustainability and best progress in the direction of assembly environmental, societal and financial Key Efficiency Indicators. That is in response to the Food Sustainability Index, developed by the Economist Intelligence Unit and the Barilla Centre for Food and Nutrition. 

In a bid to extend farmers’ welfare, since 2017 President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has promoted farmer company, the place farmers are organised into enterprise ventures, based and financed by farmers themselves, with the goal of controlling each on-farm and off-farm actions within the agricultural sector.

Dr. Syahyuti, a researcher with the Indonesian Middle of Socio-Financial and Agricultural Coverage of the Ministry of Agriculture, stated underneath the company idea, farmers are additionally concerned within the provision of seeds, fertiliser, agricultural machines, and capital with on-farm actions, and shopping for, milling, and promoting rice in off-farm actions.

Primarily based on experiences in some sub-districts, Syahyuti stated farmers firms elevated farmers’ revenue by 72 %.

Whereas the federal government is working to organise farmers into enterprise teams, Mustafa is upbeat that digitised agriculture will assist enhance the variety of farmers in Indonesia.

“I discover the variety of individuals tilling land within the district has elevated since the RiTx Bertani . A lot of them are younger and unexperienced. I get the impression that with the know-how arming is not a grimy job, however a way of life that an increasing number of individuals embrace,” Mustafa stated.

© Inter Press Service (2020) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service