The Renewal of Farmers or the Renewal of Institutions
recent weeks, thousands of new students have enrolled in agricultural colleges across Indonesia. They arrive with an enthusiasm we’ve long doubted. We’re busy trying to convince them that agriculture has a future. epEven though they’ve already chosen it.
The anomaly actually lies at the other end of the spectrum: while enrollment in agricultural programs remains high, the number of graduates who stay in the sector is disproportionately low.
The common explanation is to blame the younger generation. They’re said to be too proud to farm, unable to endure fieldwork, lured by city life, and so on.
But is that explanation really accurate? Perhaps the problem lies not with the interest of young people, but with the educational institutions that prepare them.
Reading the Changes
The world of agriculture has changed very rapidly. The sector’s labor needs are no longer limited to extension workers, government officials, and plantation companies. These jobs can no longer serve as the primary source of employment for agricultural college graduates.
On the other hand, technological advancements have created numerous opportunities that transcend disciplinary boundaries. Examples include smart farming, land data analytics, cold-chain logistics, carbon certification and sustainability, supply chain financing, and bio-industries based on living organisms, all of which are currently growing exponentially.
The emergence of modern agriculture is a response to the massive challenges faced by much of the world’s population: increasingly unpredictable weather, a continuous decline in productive land, and an aging farming population.
In Japan, for example, the average age of farmers has reached 69 years, while in South Korea, more than half of farmers are 65 years of age or older.
The modern agricultural sector does indeed require human resources with a background in agricultural science. However, that alone is not enough. This sector also demands specific skills that, unfortunately, have not yet been fully integrated into the core curriculum of agricultural education.
More Than Just Courses
Many universities have indeed recognized this situation. However, their response is often the same: adding more courses.
For example, with the current buzz surrounding artificial intelligence, many universities have responded by introducing an artificial intelligence (AI) course. Similarly, as discussions about sustainability have gained traction, many institutions have begun offering Sustainability courses.
Curricula are becoming bloated, while graduates aren’t becoming any more competent. We assume we’ve changed, but that doesn’t actually solve the problem.
Beyond simply introducing new courses, there is something far more substantial: data literacy, systems thinking, and the ability to translate science into economic value.
These three aspects are ways of working, not material to be memorized. They can only be passed on by people and structures that genuinely practice them, not through a course condensed into three semester credit units (SKS).
Today’s food security issue is as much about genetics as it is about logistics; as much about economics as it is about consumer behavior; as much about policy as it is about engineering; and as much about production as it is about sustainability.
However, this is where the least acknowledged problem lies: the boundaries of academic disciplines at our agricultural universities are still drawn according to commodities and outdated disciplines. Yet, food security issues no longer recognize those boundaries.
At the same time, campus budgets are still allocated by department. This extends to faculty career evaluations and even down to the level of research questions.
The result is predictable. Any interdisciplinary work becomes an additional activity outside the official structure. Collaboration depends on the goodwill of a handful of people and never becomes an institutional way of working.
This is where scientific and institutional transformation is needed. After all, this is not merely an administrative matter. It determines how budgets are allocated, what expertise is valued, and which academic programs are allowed to emerge and be developed.
Abroad, this transformation has already been implemented by a number of universities. Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands organizes its research and education around interdisciplinary themes such as the circular economy, climate change, and healthy food systems, rather than by commodity.
Meanwhile, Université Paris-Saclay in France is pursuing cross institutional integration for similar reasons.
Both institutions are driven by the same realization: to reform the outdated academic structures that act as barriers, and to create space for the skills most needed today to take center stage.
IPB University, for example, is pursuing this path through faculty reorganization, updating its academic architecture, and developing interdisciplinary programs. However, from the inside, it is clear that these steps are only the beginning.
Institutional restructuring is not enough
Changing the structure is the easiest part. Changes in names and organizational structures are often mistakenly believed to have solved the problem, when in fact they merely open up possibilities.
In many cases, institutional restructuring that has already been implemented is often not followed by more fundamental changes.
First, this concerns the teaching staff or faculty. Many academics on campus demand that students adapt to change. However, they do not apply this demand to themselves.
In fact, the skills of the future cannot be taught by instructors whose own skills are stuck in the past. This is not a matter of intent, but rather a matter of a system that has not yet fully provided the necessary space.
Universities can address this by offering sabbaticals or “academic leave,” one form of which is providing opportunities for faculty members to work in industry.
Conversely, universities also need to establish a track for practitioner faculty members whose status is equal to that of traditional faculty and not merely supplementary.
Performance evaluations must also recognize genuine engagement within the food ecosystem. Publications are indeed important, but they are not the sole evidence that a faculty member remains relevant.
Second, regarding the boundaries of the university itself. As long as the business world is treated merely as a source of internships rather than a partner in curriculum design, students often lag behind by one technological cycle.
Campuses often teach established concepts and have not yet been able to bridge the gap between academic depth and the rapid pace of change in professional practice.
Third, regarding the measure of success. The time it takes graduates to find employment is indeed important, but it only measures how quickly graduates adapt, not how much change they are capable of driving.
If a university’s success is measured solely by how quickly its graduates are absorbed by industry, universities will only compete to funnel their graduates into sectors that may very well be in the midst of disruption.
They’ve Arrived
Those agricultural students have now arrived on campus. They’re sitting in the auditorium for orientation and are set to graduate around 2030. The agricultural landscape they’ll face by then will almost certainly differ from what we imagine today.
Therefore, what we should be concerned about isn’t their readiness to face it, but rather how prepared the university is to guide them there.
So far, we’ve been busy finding ways to attract young people to agriculture and placing the burden of future food security on their shoulders. However, has the big question regarding agricultural educational institutions namely, whether they can reinvent themselves to become more relevant been answered?
Alim Setiawan Slamet
Rector of IPB University, Working Group on Asset Commercialization & Joint Venture Forum of PTNBH (U25)
