Surabaya – East Java Governor Khofifah Indar Parawansa reviewed modern, precision and sustainable agriculture carried out by the Nglencong Sari III and Sari Makmur Farmer Groups (Poktan) in Ngawi Regency.
“Ngawi’s rice production is the highest nationally, to achieve this, many things must be done precisely and sustainably,” said the governor, during the Field Review of the Precision and Sustainable Modern Agriculture Program for East Java as the National Food Barn, Wednesday (10/5/2023).
At that moment, several farmers were given the opportunity to dialogue with the governor, one of them was Yasin, a member of Nglencong Sari III, who conveyed the idea of breeding owls as predators of rat pests.
“I have been breeding owls for almost a year and they are starting to hatch, I think if we have owl breeding in our area, the rat population can be prevented and farmers can continue to increase their productivity,” he said.
This breeding, according to him, besides being able to offset rat pests, can also be a location for education to the community and become a tourist attraction as well, so that the surrounding community can benefit.
Responding to that, Governor Khofifah said, whatever the idea is, immediately do it to overcome the rat pest, or it could also be a comparative study to other areas that are able to overcome the same problem, such as the area in Demak, Central Java.
“Monggo as soon as possible panjenengan make a scheme like what design or what panjenengan consider it effective for owl breeding,” he said.
Meanwhile, Ngawi Regent Ony Anwar Harsono said that the average annual planting area is approximately 140,000 hectares and Ngawi’s rice productivity is the highest in the national BPS data. Ngawi also has the highest rice surplus nationally.
“Our rice production reaches 520,000 tons per year and this effort is of course supported by the provincial government to city districts in East Java. The governor always monitors how to accelerate planting and so on,” he added.
Furthermore, he said, the governor often conveyed how food security must be inclusive and equitable and all must feel the welfare of farmers and must continue to be improved.
The message of the governor’s mother, all must feel the benefits of activities in agriculture and can also reduce the food inflation rate.
“Because with high productivity, low production costs, environmentally friendly, sustainable, our production can automatically be high but the price can still be stable, this is the key to our food security,” she said.
Chairman of the Satya Lencana Pembangunan verification team from the Presidential Military Secretariat (Setmilpres) of the Ministry of State Secretariat (Kemensetneg) of the Republic of Indonesia, and the Ministry of Agriculture Inspector General Dadang Ginanjar said they deliberately visited Ngawi to see the process of farmers so that they could produce crops up to three times a year.
“The innovations made, we also saw the extent of agriculture to develop these farmers in the welfare of the community and improve the quality of agriculture in Ngawi, it seems that the increase in rice production this year is quite large so that the work of the community is also well served,” he concluded. (InfoPublik/MC Diskominfo Prov Jatim/non-hjr/toeb)
