Thursday, (12/9) Prof. Dr. Ir. Bambang Susilo., M.Sc.Agr visited Banyuwangi Regency, precisely in Sumberkencono Village, Wongsorejo District, Banyuwangi Regency in the framework of Meet UB’s Professor Program. This program is part of the service program of the Institute for Research and Community Service (LPP) Universitas Brawijaya (UB), one of the objectives of which is to conduct discussions and plans related to solutions to problems that occur in rural areas which are discussed between UB professors and rural communities and local stakeholders, especially East Java area. The topic brought up in this activity is “Post-Harvest Techniques for Agricultural Products”.
As it is known, the city of Banyuwangi has abundant agricultural potential such as onions, tomatoes and bananas, but post-harvest management is not optimal so that agricultural products cannot improve the economy of the local community. According to Suradi, chairman of the Sumber Beras Sumberkencono farmer group, people still have difficulty managing agricultural products after harvest other than by selling the products directly without processing them first, so they have a relatively short shelf life because they are influenced by environmental conditions and storage conditions. Moreover, without processing agricultural products are easily damaged if they are not sold quickly. Therefore, one solution to extend the shelf life of agricultural products and increase their selling value is to process agricultural products using technology. The technology that can be applied is vacuum technology to process harvest products. Technology that has the principle of reducing pressure in a space to below environmental pressure (less than 1 atmosphere). The advantage of this vacuum technology is that it can maintain the nutritional content so that it is not damaged by heat, furthermore the color is attractive because it does not change the color of the product after the process is carried out and can maintain the durability of a product.
This program was welcomed by the farmer group in Sumberkencono Village, Wongsorejo District, “Through discussions on this program and examples of processed products brought by UB, we have an idea of how to process agricultural products such as bananas, tomatoes, onions to become processed products such as making chips using vacuum technology. “The hope is that we can make maximum use of agricultural products and improve the welfare of the people here,” said Suradi. [wafa/UB PR/ Trans. Iir]
