IPB Students Trained The Santri to be Self-sufficiency in Producing Quality Livestock Feeds
Schools in Indonesia are run either by the government (negeri) or private sectors (swasta). Plenty of those schools do not only provide basic knowledge for their pupils, but also other skills that applicable when they plunged into the community. Those skills might be farming ability, fishery, animal husbandry, entrepreneurship and so forth. One of the training program planned by a group of students of the Faculty of Animal Husbandry of Bogor Agricultural University (FAPET IPB) to assist those pupils to acquire the additional skills were on animal husbandry. The group organized training program on animal feed preparation and farming system, the course then was followed by the practical works in the locations. The program had been funded by 2017 Program Kreativitas Mahasiswa bidang Penelitian (PKM-P Student Creativity Program for Research), administered by the Ministry of Research, Technology and Higher Education (Kemenristekdikti) of the Republic of Indonesia.
Venue of the Training Course was Madrasah Aliyah Darul Fallah, Ciampea, Bogor Regency, which is part of Darul Fallah Agricultural School Foundation. The allocated areas for the course 26.5 hectares, and is located on a fairly high elevation. "One of the reasons we choose the areas because it located in along a steep slope, and the whole lawn is filled with weeds," explained Fani as group chairman.
The area was selected as it was expected to reduce the risk of landslides or floods. PKM team consists of Fani Rahayu, Nyai Mukholisah, Yulia Apriana, Rahayu Lestari and Soni Prayoga. They came to MA Darul Fallah 2-3 times a week to teach and monitor the activities of the students.
The course was started by the introducing general livestock science. The course materials were provided in the classroom in the animal husbandry class, and the team were accompanied by the respective teacher. "The students are taught only basic animal feeding materials, such as feeding and cleaning the cage. We take the initiative to provide additional material, as to assist them in preparing their future to enable to prepare feed and to produce dairy milk. Good quality feed is really required to support the production of dairy milk produce by Darul Fallah MA livestocks, "he said.
After class presentation, the students were given opportunities to do the practical works on the planting site of animal fodder, namely Indigofera sp. It is a large genus of over 750 species of flowering plants belonging to the family Fabaceae. They are widely distributed throughout the tropical and subtropical regions of the world. This plant is a good quality animal feed with high protein content. This plant is relatively fast growing, these strains tend to be ready to harvest in only 2-3 months, we can harvest it several times (once a month). The average Indigofera produces on every harvest a yield of 1 kilogram.
By implementing the 2017 Program Kreativitas Mahasiswa bidang Penelitian (PKM-P Student Creativity Program for Research) the team expected that knowledge passed on to them will be applicable when they will be graduated. They will be able to be self-sufficiency in preparing the feed for MA Darul Fallah livestock. (Wied)
