President Jokowi, First Lady Iriana Inspect Fertilizer-Spreading Drone Simulation in S. Papua

President Jokowi and First Lady Iriana Joko Widodo visit Telaga Sari village, Kurik district, Merauke regency, South Papua province, Tuesday (07/23). (Photo by: Bureau of Press, Media and Information (BPMI) of the Presidential Secretariat/Muchlis Jr)

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo accompanied by First Lady Iriana Joko Widodo visited Telaga Sari village, Kurik district, Merauke regency, South Papua province, Tuesday (07/23) to inspect first-hand a simulation of the use of unmanned aircraft technology or drones in spreading fertilizer across 40,000 hectares of rice fields.

The fertilizer-spreading drone simulation is one example of the application of smart farming concept. Roni, Head of the Agricultural Training Center, said that smart farming concept is based on the internet of things in which all decisions are executed using the internet network.

“Then to realize the concept, we made the programming language in Android language so it can be applied by means of cell phones,” said Roni.

In addition to using drones to spread fertilizer, Roni also said that smart farming has many real benefits for farmers, such as remote controlling, automatic weather station, checking air temperature, rainfall, humidity, wind direction, wind speed, sunlight, fluctuations and others.

“By using smart farming, we have the control to check the soil moisture before watering the soil. The limit is 30 percent. If the soil moisture is less than 30 percent, it means that the soil is dry and we need to water it. If the soil moisture is more than 30 percent, it means that the soil is wet and we don’t need to water it. Similarly, if we need to spread fertilizer, we can input it into the program and then we can execute it by means of cell phones,” he explained.

On this occasion, the President and the First Lady also took the opportunity to have a direct dialogue with farmers regarding the benefits and challenges in applying this technology. They appreciated the collaborative efforts between the central government, regional governments and farmers in making technology a solution to agricultural challenges in South Papua province.

Tenang Wibowo, one of the farmers who has felt the significant difference after applying the smart farming concept, stated that through this agricultural concept, he and other farmers have the potential to yield better agricultural products.

“Thank God, through this activity, we learned that this technology makes a difference for better production. In the past, we usually yielded only 80-90 sacks [of agricultural products] per hectare of land, but through this smart farming, thank God we can yield up to 120-130 sacks,” said Tenang.

Tenang also expected the Government to pay more attention to the farmers’ needs for more water pumps. He said that the currently available pumps are still not sufficient to meet the farmers’ needs.

“Thank God, the pumps are now available but our needs here are for covering more than 1,000 hectares of land. I hope that in the future all farmers can fulfill their needs,” said Tenang.

Also accompanying the President and First Lady Iriana in the inspection were Minister of Investment/Head of the Investment Coordinating Board Bahlil Lahadalia, Minister of Agriculture Andi Amran Sulaiman, Minister of Home Affairs Tito Karnavian, Minister of Trade Zulkifli Hasan, Commander of the Indonesian National Defense Forces General Agus Subiyanto, Acting Governor of South Papua Apolo Safanlo, and Regent of Merauke Romanus Mbaraka. (BPMI SETPRES/AIT) (TM/MMB)