Agricom.id, JAKARTA – Minister of Agriculture, Syahrul Yasin Limpo told that every officer in the ministry of agriculture should monitor the agricultural production during the epidemic of corona virus (Covid-19) attacks. He thought that in the harvest in March – April, the farmers should get the better selling price to welfare them.

From the field, some villages in district of Gunung Kidul, Yogyakarta are in harvest of kinds of plantation, such as, bean and corn. The harvests are the second after they did the same in good results.

Head of Plantation and Agriculture Agency, District of Gunung Kidul, Bambang Wisnu Broto told that the bean and corn are two mainstay commodities from the district that become the needs nationally.

“Though the rain has no regular pattern now, we are grateful that the results are good. In the future, we would trigger within other program to increase the harvest,” he said, Monday (23/3/2020), as in the official statement to Agricom.id.

He also said that the farmers got about 16,5 quintal packs of bean per hectare which were planted in the  50 hectare area.

“While for the corn planted in the intercrop system, it was planted in the 146 hectare area in total or 11 kilograms per stalk or about 9,8 tons of dry shell per hectare,” he said.

Knowing this, Secretary of General Directorate of Food Plantation, Ministry of Agriculture, Bambang Pamuji did appreciate the corn and bean harvest in the district. He thought that the harvests were good and more than average category.

“In the future, ministry of agriculture would encourage to do intercrop system to increase the domestic production so that the farmers get the profits from their harvest. The intercrops in some regions showed the significant results. This could be the solution when the land use changes get increasing,” he said.

He also told that as the real action from the government, ministry of agriculture would support the farmers’ groups to propose the kredit usaha rakyat (KUR) within the small interests, 6 percent.

"The credit is good for helping the farmers to expand their business. By the KUR, the farmers could be more flexible to buy the needs, namely the tools to the post-harvest for the groups,” he said.

He did hope that the technology usage, such as, the modern ones could increase the production result to fulfill the domestic and export needs. Besides, the government has prepared the superior seeds and the agricultural insurance.

“We could fulfill the markets and the production increases. On the other hand, the government has prepared the KUR and insurance. We do hope that this could run well,” he said.

Meanwhile Chairman of Kelompok Tani Manunggal Karya Kanigoro, Nyoto said that the profits could be tens of million from one hectare area.

“We do hope that the government could prepare the tools, such as, multi-function power thresher to east the production in more numbers,” he said.

The coordinator of BPP Saptosari, Sriyatun did hope that the results could be sold in the form of ‘wose’. The analysis calculation of the business in one hectare and the production reaching 16,5 quintal of ‘wose’ should be sold about Rp 25.000 per kilogram.

"From the harvest, we could get about Rp 25.192.000 of net profit per hectare. But if it is sold in the dry shell about Rp 13.000 per kilogram, we would get only Rp 19.495.000 of net profit per hectare," he said. (A2)