National food security has become a hot topic in recent years. Data from 2022 indicates that Indonesia’s national food security is not good. Indonesia ranked 69th out of 113 countries, below the global average of 62.2.
The average food security of Asia-Pacific countries is higher than the global average, at 63.4, yet Indonesia is below the global average. Therefore, strategic agronomic steps are needed to improve this situation and achieve national food security.
The National Webinar & Agronomy Gathering, packaged in the BUPER TALK #10 Special edition themed Towards Smart Agronomy Based on Global-Class Local Wisdom, is an ideal platform to address this issue. Indonesian agronomists, including those from Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM), have a moral responsibility to improve the situation.
Professor Didik Indradewa from the Department of Agricultural Cultivation, UGM Faculty of Agriculture (Faperta UGM), was one of the speakers who provided suggestions. He stated that national food security could be achieved by operationalizing smart agronomy.
According to him, Indonesia has produced a lot of smart agronomy technology in recent years, particularly those based on local wisdom, which can be operationalized to achieve national food security through disciplined implementation.
“Some of them include Surjan, Mukibat Cassava, Subak, Smart Fertilization of Floating Rice Systems, and Agroforestry,” he said at Faperta UGM on Friday (Apr. 26).
Professor Indradewa mentioned that this local wisdom could increase productivity through its combination with Artificial Intelligence (AI) based on the Internet of Things (IoT).
The local wisdom mentioned above represents smart agronomy, developed through a long process considering local agroclimatic characteristics, thus potentially being more precise in ensuring national food security.
“Some local wisdom from Indonesia’s smart agronomy has even received global recognition, including Surjan, Subak, and Mukibat Cassava,” explained the UGM agronomist.
Dr. Syamsudin, Head of the Agricultural Instrument Standardization Implementation Center at the Ministry of Agriculture, expressed a similar opinion.
He stated that national food security could be achieved by operationalizing Indonesia’s smart agronomy technology based on local wisdom combined with AI and IoT. For example, the operationalization utilizes West Kalimantan’s local wisdom in rice cultivation to increase rice production in West Kalimantan.
“To better ensure productivity improvement, the local wisdom technology is combined with the implementation of drone technology for plant health mapping, fertilizer application, and pesticides,” he explained.
Mahmudi, Director of Production and Development at PTPN Holding, highlighted issues from the perspective of plantation commodities. He believes that the sustainability of plantation crop production is greatly determined by the ability of agricultural and plantation stakeholders to operationalize the smart agronomy approach.
For example, to ensure high productivity of oil palm, sugarcane, rubber, tea, coffee, and cocoa, the production process of plantation crops invariably encounters turbulence, mainly from weather elements and pest-disease disturbances.
“Therefore, to maintain productivity at a high level, a smart agronomy approach is required to deal with weather element turbulence and pest-disease pressures,” he explained.
Adhitya Herwin D, Marketing Manager of PT Pupuk Indonesia Holding, revealed that many factors are crucial to ensuring the high productivity of each plant commodity, including the adequacy of essential nutrients. Fertilization can meet plants’ essential nutrient needs; hence, fertilizer technology is an important part of the Smart Agronomy concept.
“PT. Pupuk Indonesia Holding is committed to developing smart fertilizer technology to support the operationalization of Smart Agronomy. These include control release fertilizer (CRF) and nano fertilizer technology. These two types of modern fertilizers are further developments of conventional fertilizers to ensure the effectiveness and efficiency of fertilization,” he explained.
Meanwhile, Dr. Eka Tarwaca Susila Putra, a researcher from Faperta UGM, stated that smart agronomy, by definition, is an integrated approach to managing landscapes, including plant components and other components, aimed at addressing the interconnected challenges of crop production sustainability and changing land carrying capacity.
Therefore, implementing smart agronomy is an effort to achieve a triple win in realizing national food security, namely increased productivity, enhanced resilience, and reduced emissions.
Author: Agung Nugroho