Agricom.id, JAKARTA - Ministry of agriculture does many breakthroughs to increase the food production, namely paddy. To be update, ministry of agriculture introduced Planting Index (PI) 400 and integrated farming concepts to increase the food security and additional values.

“We start introducing integrated farming to be zero waste, both vertically which means, the integrated upstream sector (onfarm) to downstream; and horizontally which means, the integrated farming, such as, paddy, vegetables, breeding hen, cow, and others. These concepts could be managed in a cluster in corporate – base,” General Director of Food Plantation, Ministry of Agriculture, Suwandi said in Jakarta, Wednesday (21/10/2020) as in the official statement to Agricom.id.

He thought that the PI Paddy 400 means that the farmers could plant and harvest paddy four times a year by planting it effectively. In three months, the farmers should seed, plant, and harvest paddy.

“The detail is that the paddy planting system and the variety should be in short and fast planting and harvest to realize 4 (four) harvests in a year. This could happen. The PI 400 concept runs in Village of Jagan, Sub district of Bendosari, District of Sukoharjo, Central Java for three years. The concepts run in many other districts,” he said.

He also mentioned that the concept to zero waste by the farmers in Bendosari, Sukaharjo is by minimizing external input which means, whatever inside the insitu should be processed to be compost to be efficient in the input sector. The farmers should be led to make institution in the form of corporate.

“PI 400 means to arrange the harvest fluctuation because it is seasonal to plant paddy. Four plantings in a year means that the production process would not never stop,” he said.

Suwandi also told that the technic to increase PI 400 for paddy should use the short age – seeds (70 to 90 days). The paddy grain should be sown outside of the field, the system and time of planting should be the same with (planting) calendar, the chemical fertilizer used should be urea only (25 kg/season/hectare), the planting uses nutrients from compost, waste of the plants, feces of animals. After being harvested, the farmers should directly cultivate the soil and put bio-decomposer for about 10 days and paddy could be planted again.

“Flow the field by water from the well or reservoir or by using pump in the dry land and implement the integrated farming to be zero waste,” Suwandi mentioned.

In other place, the farmer who cultivates the soil and implements PI Paddy 400 and integrated farming in Sukoharjo, Heri Sunarto said that there are some supporting factors to succeed it, such as, planting ‘padi genjah’ within 70 – 90 days of age, the integrated system and efficient planting and harvesting management, every material should be process to be the input for others because there are livestock, fishery, paddy which produce sustainably.

“In one year, we plant ‘padi genjah’ within 70s days of age and plant it for twice and the 90s days of age for twice too. These are why we could harvest 4 times in a year,” he said.

Days before, Minister of Agriculture, Syahrul Yasin Limpo emphasized that the agriculture should be developed not by the stagnant technology but digital one, plant the superior seeds, do better and integrated concepts to get additional values.

“The agricultural development achievement would be better if it is supported by the better technology. It is the answer for the future to make the agriculture and food security better,” Syahrul emphasized. (A2)