A team of lecturers from the UGM Faculty of Veterinary Medicine (FKH UGM) has initiated a program to empower children with special needs by developing integrated livestock farming as a medium for social and behavioral therapy and entrepreneurship development.
This community service activity is being carried out at the Ainul Yaqin Pesantren in Karangtengah Village, Gunungkidul Regency, Yogyakarta Special Region.
The program leader, Professor Pudji Astuti, stated that this community service has been ongoing since 2020. Initially, they encouraged the pesantren and the surrounding community to develop goat farming and utilize agricultural potential as a feed source.
“What started with only five goats has now grown to fifty,” said Professor Astuti during curriculum development and laying hen farming introduction for children with special needs on Sunday (Jul. 28).
Professor Sarmin and Dr. Claude Mona Airin from FKH UGM, UNY’s professor of special needs entrepreneurship education, Professor Ibnu Syamsi, and manager at Janu Putra Sejahtera Rully Sulistyawan attended the event.
The development of goat farming aims to increase the pesantren’s income and serve as a therapeutic medium for their students, predominantly children with special needs.
“The Integrated Farming concept we developed can serve as a medium for Social and Behavioral Therapy as well as Entrepreneurship for the students,” Professor Astuti explained.
Professor Astuti noted that children with special needs enjoy caring for and seeing young goats, who appear cute and thus act as a therapeutic medium for managing their behavior.
According to the professor, fostering an entrepreneurial spirit among the pesantren administrators, the children with special needs, and the surrounding community is equally important.
“We also aim to make this pesantren a model center for goat and laying hen farming,” Professor Astuti said.
In addition to goat farming, the team supports laying hen farming to meet the nutritional needs of the students and help prevent stunting among the community members living near the pesantren.
“We will soon provide incubators to advance the poultry farming business here. We also train proper techniques for laying hen farming. For goat farming, we provide health certificates for goats to be sold,” Professor Astuti added.
Muhidin Isma Almatin, the director of the Ainul Yaqin Pesantren, said that FKH UGM lecturers initiated the development of the livestock farm at his pesantren, which included a curriculum for special needs education.
He mentioned that they plan to raise 1,000 goats by 2026, although they currently have around fifty.
“We will develop a goat farm that could eventually become a livestock market. The challenges are in feed supply and barn preparation, hence the collaboration with the community,” Almatin said.
Besides goat farming, they have also started a laying hen farming business, where the eggs are sold and used to meet the dietary needs of the pesantren students. About 188 laying hens produce 6-7 kg of eggs daily.
“The local community buys the eggs for 2000 rupiah below the market price per carton. We produce 6-7 kg of eggs daily,” he noted.
Riswanto, the head of Karang Tengah hamlet in Sumber Wungu, welcomed the training provided to the community for laying hen farming. He pointed out that until now, most residents have been raising free-range chickens, which often die during the dry season.
“Raising laying hens close to homes or in the still-spacious fields seems beneficial. If one or two people start or observe this farming model at the pesantren, it could set a practical example,” he concluded.
Author: Gusti Grehenson