Cassava Tourism Village of Benteng, New Icon of Agricultural Education Tourism in Bogor Regency
Center for Human Resource Development (P2SDM), Institute for Research and Community Service (LPPM), Bogor Agricultural University (IPB) in collaboration with the Ministry of Research, Technology and Higher Education (Kemristekdikti) of the Republic of Indonesia developed and opened the Cassava Tourism Village in Benteng Village, Ciampea, Bogor.
This village is one of the villages built by IPB on the campus circle. The pilot activity of Cassava Tourism Village was planned for three years with an outline of activities including: approaching and strengthening farmer groups and women farmer groups as cassava businessmen, strengthening and optimizing the role of Youth Organization, cultivation training, training on cassava processing into Modified Cassava (Mocav) and various processed foods such as Browncav (mocav brownies) and pingkong (cassava chips).
P2SDM Researcher of LPPM of IPB, Ir. Mintarti, M.Sc explained that Benteng Village is an agricultural village with cassava as the main commodity. The amount of cassava production in Benteng Village reaches 200 tons per hectare per year with an average land ownership of 500-3000 square meters per person. At the harvesting time, the price of cassava can fall to the price of Rp. 700 per kilogram while the normal price of it is Rp. 1500 to Rp. 2000 per kilogram. This low price is certainly detrimental to farmers.
The potential of natural resources in this village has not given significant impact in improving the level of the community welfare. "The root of this problem is the low skill of farmers in a profitable farming effort where farmers still sell raw cassava. Farmers do not have the skills to process cassava into processed food products. Therefore it is necessary to establish the Cassava Tourism Village to manage the potential of cassava as a source of community improvement," said Mintarti.
In addition, the establishment of the Cassava Tourism Village aims to improve the knowledge, attitudes and skills of members of farmer groups (poktan) and women farmer groups (KWT) in cultivation, postharvest processing and management of cassava businesses, groupings of farmer groups and KWTs in integrated cassava entrepreneurial processes. The process covers cultivation center, mocav center, processed food center, market center and promotion, and design of thematic cassava village as food tourism village.
Mintarti emphasized that the concept of the Cassava Tourism Village in Benteng Village provides sales services for agricultural education tours for people who want to learn about cassava starting from cultivation, maintenance, planting, harvesting, to processing. "Visitors can learn how to plant, seed, nurture, fertilize, control pests and harvest both cassava and cassava leaves as vegetable ingredients. The visitors will also enjoy various snacks from cassava, such as 'Thai cassava' which is boiled cassava with sugar and thick coconut milk, cassava urap, fried cassava, cassava satay and so on which can be enjoyed in the middle of cassava garden."
The Benteng Village Head, Faka Harika, stated that IPB has helped the economy of Benteng Village community to be better with superior programs. "IPB has also brought many changes, both physical and non-physical, including the formation of a new KWT, reactivation of the Youth Organization, and the dynamic of the KWT and farmer groups, in which all of these make the appearance of the village more beautiful. KWT members and farmer groups are more skilled in agricultural and food processing." The Benteng community hopes that IPB can still accompany the development of this tourism village embryo as the forerunner to an entrepreneurial village in Bogor Regency. (Awl/ris/ZSP)
