Head of Pidie Regency Invites IPB to Map Agricultural Potentials

Head of Pidie Regency, Province of Aceh (NAD), H. Mirza Ismail, S. Sos invites Bogor Agricultural University (IPB) to conduct a Mapping Survey of Data of Potential Products and Construction Design for agriculture, livestock, fisheries, forestry and plantations in the region. "We see that IPB has been the center of Indonesian agriculture. This is what encourages us to do the joint survey," Mirza said in a signing ceremony of Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between IPB and Pidie on Monday (16 / 1) at the Darmaga Campus of IPB.

From the survey, Mirza hopes the resulted data on the potential agriculture can later be used as a reference to set up a government policy according to the product excellence for each region and to find a market for these products. Mirza then cited the tradition of the peasants in Pidie who like to put the blood of goat skin at each corner of the field. Every time the farmers are asked for the purpose of such behavior, they just answer that it is the habit passed down from their ancestors. "We consider this as a superstition. But the real reason for this can be understood scientifically. The blood smell of the goat skin is very rancid and well-liked by Walang sangit (bad smell grasshoppers). As a result the insects prefer crowding the blood to attacking the rice owned by farmers," said Mirza.

Rector of IPB, Prof. Herry Suhardiyanto expressed his appreciation to the Head of Pidie Reency, who is very concerned about agriculture. "Hopefully, cooperation between IPB and Pidie keeps going despite the change in leadership. Pidie has a lot of agricultural potential and opportunity to develop further," said Prof.Herry. (Mtd)