Training Articles

Training for Agricultural Counselors: Ministry of Agriculture's Pillar of Support for Farmers

20 May 2024

NATC Batangkaluku - One of the efforts in increasing agricultural production is innovation. The Ministry of Agriculture has been supporting this by providing agricultural human resource development through the Rural Empowerment and Agricultural Development Scaling-up Innitiative (READSI) Program.

The READSI program is believed to be able to increase the capacity of farmers in implementing eco-friendly sustainable agriculture, while at the same time boosting productivity to maintain food security and food safety.

The Minister of Agriculture Amran Sulaiman said that food is a strategic aspect that should be built up together.

"Food security is identical to state resilience. If we can survive the economic crisis, we can pass it. We can pass the health crisis, Covid 19. But if the food crisis can affect other things, so we must really work together to protect it," said Minister Amran.

The same statement was also delivered by the Head of Agricultural Counseling and Human Resources Development Agency (ACHRDA) of the Ministry of Agriculture, Dedi Nursyamsi, adding that under any circumstance’s agriculture should never be stopped.

"Agriculture should not stop to provide the food needs of all Indonesian people. The same applies to soil cultivation, planting, and harvesting. This is because the food issue is a very important issue and affects the life and death of a nation," said Dedi.

In providing support as directed by the Minister of Agriculture and the Head of ACHRDA, the READSI Program also regularly provides refresher training for Agricultural Counselors in order to make a real contribution in improving the competence and quality of the agricultural counselors all over Indonesia.

Head of the Agricultural Training Center - ACHRDA, Muhammad Amin, when opening the refresher training for non-assistant counselors of the READSI program, said that this training is one of the strategies to carry out empowerment programs for the community (farmers), which is expected that the role of Counselors can assist the community to carry out agricultural activities to increase agricultural productivity.

“Therefore, Agricultural Counselors are the frontline of agricultural development because they are directly in contact with the interests of farmers regarding the various innovations, they (the farmers) need, therefore it is necessary to provide assistance by the counselors in each READSI program area,” he explained.

NATC Batangkaluku as one of the Technical Implementing Units under ACHRDA also conducted the training that involved 58 participants who were divided into 2 (two) batches.

The training was conducted for 7 days, from March 18-25, 2024. Participants will be provided with several training materials such as equality of gender, disability, and social inclusion (GEDSI) in agriculture; strategy for climate-smart agriculture; seed selection and certification; fertilization and plant nutrition, pest and disease control; post-harvest processing; growth of farmers' economic institutions; business model development; and strengthening Agricultural Counselors information systems.

(Red/*)
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