Presidential Staffer Billy Mambrasar Meets with Young Farmers Community in Bali

Special Staffer to the President Billy Mambrasar meets with Petani Muda Keren (Cool Young Farmers) community in Buleleng, Bali Province, Monday (30/11). (Photo by: Public Relations/Rahmat)

In a bid to support the 2.5 million millennial farmers program initiated by Ministry of Agriculture, Special Staffer to the President Billy Mambrasar had a meeting with the Petani Muda Keren (Cool Young Farmers/PMK) community in Gobleg Village, Buleleng Regency, Bali Province, Monday (30/11/). This program aims at supporting national food security.

According to the Presidential Staffer, he was tasked to attract the youth to becoming farmers and to directly communicate with farmer communities in the country regarding assistance that could be provided by the Government.

“We have visited more than 15 provinces across the country. My team and I met with millennial farmers in order to inspect and identify the obstacles they face as well as the vision they expect to accomplish,” he said.

Information from the farmers, Billy said, will be forwarded to Minister of Agriculture Syahrul Yasin Limpo.  The Minister gave him a target to generate 100 thousand millennial farmers. Therefore, the PMK community is expected to give contribution by providing data and creating programs for the youth around the Gobleg village and throughout Bali province.

Billy went on to say that young farmers can be classified into four categories. The categories including farmers who work in the field, farmers who become a middleman that bridges the gap between farms and markets, farmers who utilize modern technology, such as the Internet of things (IoT), and farmers who carry out export-import activities. On that occasion, he also invited 30 young farmers to collaborate and cooperate with the Government.

“This is the moment to cooperate. Minister of Agriculture and the President have given their support. However, there are still other ministries and institutions that must be approached,” he said.

At the end of the meeting, Billy told the PMK community not to hesitate to propose several programs that could support their agriculture.

In the meantime, Chairman of the PMK Bali Community who is also the initiator of the community, Agung Wedha, expressed his appreciation for the visit of the Presidential Staffer. He said that the visit could raise the spirit of young farmers.

“We hope this synergy will help us to connect the dots among the ministry and other stakeholders,” Agung said.

He also expressed hope that the PMK community, that has more than 300 members, can encourage more young people into farming and motivate many farmers to be proud of being farmers so they can make the island of Bali prosperous.

The PMK community is part of the Young Farmers Forum in Bali. Its farming concept is integrated agriculture, holistic agriculture from upstream to downstream. According to Agung, the PMK community has a concept of culture-based agriculture, instead of agribusiness. A culture that was born from agriculture, and tourism as a bonus.

The vision of the PMK community is to produce organic products, encourage farmers to live a healthy life, and build sustainable businesses. By adopting small-scale integrated farming, it aims to pursue the quality, continuity, and quantity of agricultural products.

The PMK community also utilized technology 4.0 by developing three major applications, including Farmer Apps (digitization with big data output), BOS Fresh (marketing of agricultural products), and Nabung Tani (financial technology for agricultural funding). (SLN/UN) (RIF/MMB)