The community service team from the Accounting Department, Faculty of Economics and Business, Universitas Brawijaya collaborated with vegetable and fruit farming practitioners to carry out training on simple household-scale farming (urban family farming) in Sawojajar 2 Malang area. The activity, chaired by Yeney Widya Prihatiningtias, DBA., Ak., CA., aims to utilize narrow residential land to grow vegetables and fruit which will improve family nutrition and on a larger scale will improve the family economy.
“Moreover, of course the simplest goal is to green the residential area so that it looks more beautiful with vegetable and fruit plants that are uniform or the same between houses. “This urban family farming also uses household materials that are no longer used, so the hope is that it will also be environmentally friendly and minimize waste,” said Yeney.
Andi Rizal, SP. who graduated from the Faculty of Agriculture, Universitas Brawijaya and has experience managing agricultural land and greenhouses since 2012, was the speaker for this activity.
He provided some material related to agricultural concepts in general and then it was immediately put into practice by around 30 training participants, the majority of whom were mothers.
This concept consists of an introduction to planting media, organic and inorganic (chemical) fertilizers, the use of pesticides, and stages of plant growth. After receiving the materials, the participants then immediately tried to plant melon seeds using rock melon (green melon) and cherry pepper chilli in the planting media provided. Each participant received one melon plant and one pok coy plant as event souvenirs.
Andi also monitored the participants’ work process when trying to plant seeds in soil.
Planting is carried out in polybags filled with fermented sugar cane waste (blotong), husk charcoal and cocopeat (coconut fiber powder). All participants felt happy to receive the seeds they had planted themselves, especially when they were given entertainment prizes in the form of souvenirs with Universitas Brawijaya logo to participants who actively participated during the activity.
Andi also said that the success or failure of farming depends on providing fertilizer and spraying pesticides.
“Fertilizer can be made from wet waste into compost and pesticides can also be made from vegetable materials. “In this activity we also taught how to make pesticides and compost,” he said.
The service team from the Accounting Department has provided the necessary materials so that participants can immediately see how it is made.
Nonik, as Mother of RW 17 Mangliawan Pakis, said that there had never been an agricultural training activity like this in her area and of course it was very beneficial for the participants to be able to green their home environment and later get the results.
“In addition, these melon and chili plants will also become a distinctive feature of the RW and differentiate it from other RW areas. “I hope there will be further training and monitoring of the results of planting today’s seeds so that participants can evaluate and improve the planting process that has been carried out so that in the future the results obtained will be even better,” he said. (YNY/OKY/UB PR/ Trans. Iir).
