IAAS LC UNDIP PILOT PROJECT ON
GINGER CULTIVATION
By IstiAnnis, et.al.
Background
This is an IAAS LC Diponegoro
University (Undip) Indonesia pilot project in 2014 which located in Gemawang
village, subdistrict of Jambu, Semarang district, in Central Java province.
With an area of 7.86 km2, Gemawang village is bordered by three districts,
namely Semarang District, Temanggung district, and Magelang District. Gemawang
village is known as the first vocational village in Indonesia which is
dtermined by the The Center for Development of Non-Formal and Informal
Education (P2PNFI) Regional II Central Java, under the Ministry of Education
and Culture for vocational skills education.
There are three consideration why
Gemawang village is appointed as a vocational village pilot projects, that is
(1) has large potential of local comparative advantage, (2) high number of
unemployment and poverty in the village, and (3) high enthusiasm of the
community for advancing and improving public welfare. Nowadays, there are eleven business
group in the Gemawang village, including honey bee business groups, fisheries,
batik Gemawang, pioneer farming, coffee powder, garments, catering, pasta
indigo (high-quality materials for batik), rabbits, mushrooms, and educational
toys. Recently, Gemawang village is being developed with the ginger cultivation in ‘bagor’ (used
to be as the sack of rice) growing media. The villagers had long time ago
planted ginger in a way that no special treatment. Lately, one of the leader of
farmer groups in Gemawang village, BambangSugoro, pioneering a new innovation
by planting ginger by using ‘bagor’ as growing media. The soil is consist of
filtered sea sand or grit from Mount Merapi, which then mixed with ladu soil (local
name for certain kind of soil) with a ratio of 1 to 1. With such method, a
ginger plant in bagor bag can produced up to 25 kg, compared to ordinary poly
bag which only 10 kg. In addition, planting ginger did not
need a large place. Water supply is available in spring because it supported
bay local water company by free. There several of ginger planted in Gemawang,
such as Emprit Ginger, Elephant Ginger, Red Ginger, Ginger Sunti, and Ginger
Lime. Ginger from Gemawang village is marketed under the brand name of Empon Wangi.
Elephant ginger is the most widely
exported to United States, Netherlands, United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, Japan,
and Hong Kong. Each year, Indonesian ginger exports increased by 32.75%, while
Indonesia ginger market share ginger in the world is 0.8%, which means that the
export opportunities is still great. With these innovations on ginger
cultivation, if seriously implemented in large scale, it is expected that
unemployment and poverty in Gemawang village can be reduced. The increased of
ginger cultivation with new innovation can also be seen as part of an effort to
prepare Gemawang village to be a tourism village that has been initiated since
the last ago.
Problem Identification and project aims
From our observation and supporting
by statistical data and interview with village leaders, we found some
identified problems and issues in Gemawang villages. Firstly, unemployment and
poverty is still high. Secondly, the new innovation of ginger plant that can
produce more products with shorter time of planting is needed to be socialized
among the villagers in order to raise their income. Thridly, several efforts
should be done to improve and expand the marketing both the ginger itself and
processed products so have added value.
From those identified problems and
issues, we propose a pilot project of ginger cultivation which implemented a
new innovation. So the objective of the project is to introduce new innovations
of ginger plant that can produce more products with shorter growing time, and
persuade the villagers to cultivate ginger. Moreover, to reduce unemployment,
poverty, and increasing income for villagers, and improve and expand the market
of both ginger and the processed products.
There are several indicators to
assess wether this program is success. Through this pilot project, we expect
that majority of the community of farmer groups becomes aware of the innovation
in ginger cultivation. Then, some of them are willing to cultivate ginger with
the new innovation. After the ginger is harvested, then the community will see
and realize that doing ginger cultivation with new innovations produced great
value. In the long time, this project is expecting to increase the number of
entrepreneurs who are interested in the cultivation of ginger.
Overview of communities
Gemawang village is located in
District Jambu, Semarang regency,
Central Java Province. The village is located on the mainroad of Ambarawa to
Magelang at kilo meter 12, and is directly adjacent to some of the village of
Magelang Regency and Temanggung Regency. According to office of Semarang
District, Gemawangia considered as "Developing village" with the
figures of poor households is 33.3%. Gemawang village consists of 7 clusters,
786 hectares of width, and 3,577 population. 85% of the villagers of 85% is farmer, and the remain works in
various. The education level Gemawang
villagers described in the following table.
Table 1: Level of Education Gemawang Village Communities
Level Of Education
|
Gender
|
Total
|
|
Male
|
Female
|
||
Not Have School
|
43
|
83
|
126
|
Schooldays
|
317
|
299
|
616
|
No School Again
|
1.200
|
1.230
|
2.430
|
Total
|
1.560
|
1.612
|
3.172
|
Source:
Jambu District by the number in 2013
The village has 1 mini market, 27
stores / grocery shop, 9 food stall, and 2 restaurants. The composition of the
population is as follows.
Table 2: Composition OfGemawang Population
Group Age
|
Gender
|
Total
|
|
Male
|
Female
|
||
15-19
|
117
|
120
|
237
|
20-24
|
103
|
148
|
251
|
25-29
|
145
|
166
|
311
|
30-34
|
156
|
155
|
311
|
35-39
|
137
|
157
|
294
|
40-44
|
153
|
133
|
286
|
45-49
|
134
|
134
|
268
|
50-54
|
112
|
102
|
214
|
55-59
|
76
|
72
|
148
|
60-64
|
50
|
50
|
100
|
Total
|
1.183
|
1.237
|
2.420
|
Source:
Jambu District by the number in 2013
Project implementation
The first step that must be done is
internal coordination among team members with the supervisor and other elements
in campus, and external coordination with community leaders and village heads
of Gemawang. The main important part of this project is socialization and
persuation to the villagers. There are some farmer groups which one of them is
lead by BambangSugoro. He is a nonformal village leaders as well as leader of
Farmer Group Empon Wangi. BambangSugoro is the innovator of ginger plantation
in Gemawang.
After the member of Empon Wangi
farmer group have sufficient information and some of them interested in ginger
cultivation, then the next step is conducting training and counseling on ginger planting. The
technical aspects of training divided in to ginger plant maintenance, and
products processing. Counseling consist of four categories, that is related to
the production of fertilizers bokasi, marketing, understanding of field
support, and personal motivation.
To replicate and extend this pilot
project, a good documentation is very essential. Through the vast picture and
video as well as written process documentation, the effort to provide insight
to other members of the community in Gemawang, will be effective and more
interesting. Producing dumentation consists of creating guide books, videos,
and also still picture related to these activity. The next step is doing
promotion, with the main focus on marketing through social media and websites.
Marketing consists of all production from Gemawang village. As an initial step,
marketing will be targetted to students and other related with interest in
community development .
As part of a project cycles,
monitoring and evaluation will be done along and at the certain phase of the
project. Monitoring activities are conducted to make sure that the project
activities are follow the schedule. This monitoring and evaluation will
involved the community leaders and project supervisors so that the team can get
a valueable inputs and advise.
A small seminar to communicate and
discuss the achievements of the project will be conducted in academic
community. Team leader, farmer group leader, and lecturer will be the resource
person, and student either involved or not in this project will be the
participant. The seminar will be conducted in campus and is expected to collect
critics, inputs, and other views in order to improve the quality of the
project.
About Unknown
IAAS LC UNDIP is The one of the Local Committee who are members of IAAS INDONESIA which is the biggest international student organization in the world's field of agriculture and related sciences who located at Diponegoro University, Semarang, Central Java. We have the village concept project which was in Gemawang Village with our excellent products namely chocolate ginger (Chocoped's) and We have 120 Total Members
