FAO and IPB University are Encouraging for the Digital Village in Indonesia
IPB University and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) held a Digital Village Ecosystem Workshop, (7/3) at eL Hotel Royale Bandung. This activity was attended by several important figures in the world of agriculture and Indonesian development.
The attendants were Rajendra Aryalm (Representative/Country Director FAO Indonesia), Aziz Elbehri (Senior Economist and Lead Technical Officer, FAO Regional Asia Pacific), Dr Ageng Herianto (Deputy Programme FAO Indonesia), Dr Hj Ida Fauziyah, MSi (Minister of Manpower of the Republic of Indonesia), Prof Arif Satria (Rector of IPB University), Theresia Junidar, SPi, MEc (Head of Pusdatin Ministry of Villages, Development of Disadvantaged Regions, and Transmigration) and Rizky Hustianari, ST, MT (Head of Digital Service Unit, Data and Geospatial Information at Jabar Digital Service).
Also in attendance were representatives from the central government, provincial governments, provincial and city governments, village governments, industry and technopreneurs, research institutions, academics, non-governmental organizations, and other institutions and agencies related to rural digitalization.
The research team from IPB University, led by Dr Yani Nurhadryani from the Department of Computer Science, carried out digital village ecosystem assessment activities in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Dr Yani said, in 2022, Indonesia along with 13 other countries in the Asia-Pacific region agreed to conduct a Digital Village Innovation (DVI) assessment. Since 2022, FAO, with the support of the IPB University team, surveyed 132 villages in Indonesia to assess the level of digital innovation including the development of digital technology and the level of adoption to determine the maturity of digital innovation. As a result of the survey, West Java was declared as a province that applies digital innovation quite progressively.
Meanwhile, in his remarks, Rajendra Aryal, Chief Representative of FAO in Indonesia and Timor Leste emphasized the importance of efforts to attract young people to take part in agriculture. In 2021, FAO launched the Digital Village Initiative (DVI) in 13 countries in the Asia-Pacific region to promote digitalization in rural areas for the benefit of the local population.
As the keynote speaker at this dissemination, the Rector of IPB University, Prof Arif Satria revealed that IPB University has conducted 1,006 studies related to Agro-Maritime 4.0 (digital agriculture). In addition, IPB University has also built and fostered as many as 4,258 villages throughout Indonesia by 2022.
“Some of the digital innovations produced by IPB University in the agricultural sector include Rice Field 4.0, Smart Integrated Pest Management, Smart Forest Fire Prevention System, Precision Fertilization, and Precision Village Data which have been used in 1,124 villages in 16 provinces by 2023,” he said.
From the institutional side, he continued, IPB University has Tani Center and IPB Digitani to bring farmers in the village closer to the latest innovations and expertise owned by IPB University. With this accomplishment, IPB University continues to be more committed to developing digital innovations in agriculture and helping farmers to increase their agricultural productivity.
In this activity, there was also a soft-launching of the Indonesian Digital Village Catalog Web and two books produced from the digital village ecosystem assessment activities that had been carried out.
The first book is entitled Knowing the Digital Village Ecosystem and the second book is entitled Digital Village Journey in West Java: Collaboration to Build Digital Villages. The web and book were created as a medium to disseminate the results of the activities to the public to encourage collaboration between stakeholders to support the digital village ecosystem in Indonesia. (*/Zul) (IAAS/RUM)
