Faculty of Agriculture Universitas Brawijaya held a Workshop “Equalizing Perceptions in Developing Agricultural Clinic Design”, Sunday (15/8/2021). This event was attended by participants from the agricultural instructor profession, academics, students, farmers, and entrepreneurs/agricultural observers with a total of 240 participants who registered. The workshop was opened by the Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture, Dr. Ir. Damanhuri, MS.
The workshop presented four speakers, namely the representatives of millennial farmers (Rakhmad Hardiyanto, ST and Eko Yudi Sukrianto), representative of agricultural entrepreneurs from Rijk Zwaan BV company (Ir Novianto), and agricultural clinic practitioners from Balitsa (Ir. Tonny Koestoni Moekasan). The farmers highlighted that there are still many problems in farming related to traditional farming patterns, healthy consumption patterns, sustainable production, consumers who tend to choose products, and production qualifications that must match to the market. He also expressed his hope that UB agricultural clinic will not only provide information on conventional cultivation in the future but show at least, a kind of dashboard that can be easily accessed with functions of agricultural product prices, quality control, agricultural smart technology from upstream to downstream.
Ir. Novianto, as Chain Manager South East Asia at Rijk Zwaan BV underlined the need to upgrade agricultural human resources who are still incompetent even though rapid innovation is required to face modernization and the extraordinary complexity of global competition. He hopes that universities can play a more active role and be able to anticipate global trends by continuously adjusting the dynamics of technology, markets and the environment in the agricultural business through improving their curriculum.
Ir. Tonny Koestoni Moekasan, the main researcher of Balitsa, who represented MyAgri, conveyed the unique problems that have often been encountered during the service and management of agricultural clinics since 2015. However, the underlined point is that agricultural clinic services can be provided, the services are simple, easy and cheap, for example with android-based applications, such as WhatsApp (WA), and the delivery of interactive moments is still a desirable choice both from the management side and the user community.
This activity is a series of implementation of the Independent Campus Competition Program (PKKM) Agroecotechnology Study Program FP-UB in 2021, with the hope that its output can be used as a basis for the concept formation and design of the Agricultural Clinic and Knowledge Management Unit.
The target is that the modern agricultural clinic formed can be used as a service to the community as well as a vehicle that can also encourage the achievement of UB MAIN PERFORMANCE INDICATORS (IKU), IKU-2 (Students get experience outside campus), IKU-3 (Lecturers can carry out activities outside campus) and IKU-5, (the work results can be used by the community).
Dr. Sujarwo as the Coordinator of PKKM UB hopes that the agricultural clinic that will be formed later has a wider function in accordance with the developing era, although it must carry out definitions and redesign or remodeling if it needed in order to remain able to keep pace or harmonize the rapid innovation.
In this workshop activity, a formulation was obtained that needed to be redefined from conventional agricultural clinics becomes 4.0 era agricultural clinics so that in the context of its formation it needs to be redesigned or at least there is a modification to the clinical concept that is commonly understood today. For the next step, the involvement of experts from farmers, drafters, education, communicators, IT experts and other experts is very important together to realize the establishment of a modern agricultural clinic owned by UB. [Humas UB/ Trans. Iir]
