Agricom.id, PROBOLINGGO - Ministry of agriculture as the front guard to food keeps doing the best to guarantee the food, namely in the Covid-19 pandemic. It is known from the work which showed the positive one in the third quarter. Ministry of agriculture keeps maintaining the farmers’ economy by giving the help and guidance when producing.

Minister of Agriculture, Syahrul Yasin Limpo takes every officer in agriculture, both in the central and regional government to be in synergy and keeps working hard to realize every program of agricultural development. He keeps urging his officers to accelerate the helps, technical guidance, and others to keep the production.

General Directorate of Horticulture, Ministry of Agriculture just gave the production tools to chili and medical plantations in some districts, such as, Probolinggo, Banyuwangi, and Serang.

Director of Vegetable and Medical Plantation, General Directorate of Horticulture, Ministry of Agriculture, Tommy Nugraha told that the program keeps running though the pandemic still hits. The goal is to urge the farmers so that they have spirit to cultivate and the food needs are available in our country.

“I gave assignment to the echelon III, IV, and the staffs to hand over the chili and medical plant production tools in Probolinggo, Banyuwangi, and Serang. We help them too by giving the cultivation technical guidance of environmental chili,” he said from other place, Friday, (2/10) as in the official statement to Agricom.id.

The helps covered the seeds of chili and likat kuning. District of Probolinggo and Banyuwangi got the helps to develop 30 hectares of chili and District of Serang covers 16 hectares. The helps for the medical plantations are jahe gajah seeds that would be distributed to the farmers in the second week of October.

The farmers got the technical guidance of environmental chili development. Besides being healthy to consume, the environmental cultivation would optimally urge the production and increase the farmers’ economy and they could compete.

The farmers do welcome the helps of the government. Chairman of Tani Surya Makmur Empat, Sub district of Leces, District of Probolinggo, Sarino thanked for being chosen as one group getting the helps.

Head of Horticulture, Agriculture Agency, District of Probolinggo, Didik Tulus Prasetya also asked for the farmers to be able to adopt the new technology, such as, hybrid seed use, and implement the environmental cultivation.

“We told them to do calculate the productivity of chili and they should compare the production within the local variety. It is important for the farmers to record the result. It is called log book to analyze which factor is important, profitable, and what factors need to minimize to increase the efficient production,” he said.

He also said that the chili is planted in October-November, out of the common schedule that the farmers do. But his side has reason to do the planting.

“It is against to the chili planting in District of Probolinggo. But if they plant in the months, they would get the better price in January-February," he said. (A2)