Mahasiswa UGM Berdayakan Petani Melon
Mahasiswa UGM Berdayakan Petani Melon
The village of Jamusan is a melon producing-village in Sleman regency, Yogyakarta. There are still, however, problems facing the farmers there due to their lack of knowledge on growing and marketing the melon.
Students of UGM joining the Melon team of Gadjah Mada (Me-Gama) were then conducting an empowerment programme for the farmers. They are asked to grow the Kultivar MG-3 melon, one of the genetics engineering done at the Genetics Lab in Faculty of Biology UGM.
Hanifah Hanini, a member of the team, said the team did a two-way empowerment programme called “Twist Empowerment” for the local people of Jamusan. First, they socialised the programme, then trained the people on melon cultivation, management, and marketing of processed products.
“We introduced to the people of Jamusan how to get good quality of melons, agriculture cultivation and management as well as diversification so the fruit can improve their prosperity,”said Hanifah on Monday (5/10).
After one year of getting empowerment, the people of Jamusan are now able to produce good quality MG-3 melon in cooperation with some other groups that help market the fruit, including UMKM Katering, Formasigen, PT. Superindo, and PT. Alamanda Sejati Utama to export the MG-3 to Singapore.
Furthermore, the diversification has produced eight variants of melon, including CupCake Melo, Pudding Melo, Roghut Melo, Pizza Melo, Pie Melo, Kue Suri, Pancake Melo dan Bapel Melo. Housewives there have previously been trained in diversifying melon processed products.
Hanifah said it was not easy for them to do the community service for one year. It is a challenge for them to do the service , but these have all paid off when the farmers learned the benefits of their hard work, which among others, was economic improvement. “I hope this project will continue with other students (doing community service),” Hanifah concluded.