From Villages for Indonesia Tuesday, April 1, 2014

We have to develop villages because they are our own homes. Youth contributes a lot to development through villages. This is expressed by Director of Indonesian Village Development Foundation, Bachtiar Firdaus in the seminar “From Villages for Indonesia” and the Declaration of Indonesian Movement of Rural Development, Thursday (27/3) in Darmaga campus of  IPB.

Meanwhile,  Prof. Dr. Ir. Yonny Koesmaryono, M.S, Vice Rector for Academic and Student Affairs in his speech said the empowerment programs of rural communities and development  must be synergized massively into all elements so that agriculture could be of the interest of many people. A similar view is also given by Gun Soetopo of the National Horticulture Council. “Young people must directly involve in farming entrepreneurs. Diverse and dynamic farming can trigger youth’s motivation to be fullly engaged in agribusiness,” he said. Entrepreneurship in agribisiness can reduce unemployment rate. The unemployment of 2012 was 7,390 million, which includes intellectual unemployment accounting for 610 thousand people consusting of 190  D1, D2, D3 graduates and 420 S1 graduates.

Achmad Febriyansyah, represenrative of PT. Tiga Pilar Sejahtera Food Tbk that sponsors ‘Indonesia Develops Villages, added that his company is trying to buy rice from farmers not by taking over farmer’s land. Not only as a distrubutor but it also does the processing and packaging so that it can increase the selling value of rice for the community.

After the seminar, the declaration of “Indonesian Movement of Rural Developmrnt was read, which wad led by Diki Saefurohman accompanied by a participant of ‘Indonesia Develops Villages’, the first batch, Restu Setyo Wicaksono. This movement is committed to generate excellent human resources possessing the character of entrepreneurship to empower rural communities systainably in utilizing resources and rural potential in agriculture, animal farming and fishery as efforts to move the economy of rural communities.

This seminar, organized by the Indonesian Rural Development Foundation in cooperation with  the Student Executive Body, Faculty of Agriculture, Bogor Agricultural Universitu (BEM FAPERTA IPB),  invited other speakers including Muchlis Hasyim (CEO of Inilah.com), Dr. Ir. Abdul Munif, M.Sc, Agr (Developing Board of the Indonesian Rural Develipment Foundation), Ir. Lukman M. Baga, MA.Ec (expert of cooperatives economy) and Darmawan Sepriyossa (Acting Editor of Inilah.com).