Poverty and income gap are still a problem for Yogyakarta local government. The poverty rate in 2016 was 13.1% or the highest in Java, referring to data of Central Statistics Agency.
Poverty is aplenty in rural areas where most people earn their living as farmers. The low level of land ownership (under 300 m2) is one of the reasons for the low income as well as lack of agricultural knowledge.
These prompted Faculty of Animal Sciences UGM to do Dissemination Programme of Technology Products with funding from Ministry of Research, Technology and Higher Education through technology transfer of layer chicken to produce functional eggs as a breakthrough project.
“Community empowerment programme through chicken rearing is done based on the technology that has been developed in our research. The campus research product is expected to be able to help resolve the problem among community,” said Chairman of the Empowerment Programme, Prof. Dr. Ir. Ali Agus, DAA., DEA., IPU.
The functional egg products have better nutrition so they have higher sale price than the regular eggs. This community empowerment programme will also give better nutrition to people.
The programme is run in the Banaran Kidul village in Sentolo district, Kulon Progo regency starting from June 2018 and lasting for two months. There are five farmers being involved in this programme.
The technology delivered to the farmers include coop making, feed management, rearing, egg handling, and system sustainability. The farmers will obtain 40-50 chickens each. A monitoring and evaluation will follow related to the technology transfer understanding.
One of the farmers, Eko Pratomo, said the programme could offer additional income for the family. The eggs that are produced can also be consumed to improve the family’s nutrition intake. Besides, the chicken rearing does not take much space and is easily run.
This is expected to be a model of poverty alleviation and community welfare improvement by way of nutritious and balanced food that have high economic value.