Agricom.id, Samarinda – The spread of epidemic of corona virus (Covid-19) in this country does not stop the spirit of the farmers in Samarinda to do farming in their paddy fields. Since February and March 2020 there had been harvests of tubers and paddy, such as, the Mikongga in Sub district of Palaran. From the paddy harvest, the farmers got about 5 to 6 tons per hectares (ha) in average.

Head of Production, Food, Food Plantation, and Horticulture Agency, East Kalimantan Province, Rini Susilawati said that the harvest in Samarinda covered 579 ha in March within the productivity reaching 2063,03 tons.

"The numbers of areas to harvest would be more in this city in April. This happens for there are kinds of paddy that was planted in each sub district,” she said, Saturday (18/4/2020) as in the official statement to Agricom.id.

Aswiyani, one farmer in Sub district of Palaran, Samarinda told that the harvest in this year increases after planting in the good agricultural practices (GAP) and follow the demonstration (dem) area program from Ministry of Agriculture through Directorate of Food Plantation Protection.

“It is good to join the demonstration (dem) area of GAP. The results are good and increases,” Aswiyani said.

Diah Adhiati Yahya, one in charge to the program in Unit Pelaksana Teknis Dinas (UPTD) Food Plantation Protection and Horticulture, East Kalimantan Province, was grateful for the successful harvest.

She thought that the harvest from the program should prove to the other farmers that the GAP if runs well would make the better result.

“In the future, there would be more farmers joining and implementing GAP to paddy in this province, namely Samarinda,” she said.

Apart from that, Director of Food Plantation Protection, Ministry of Agriculture, Edy Purnawan emphasized that the impact of the GAP would not be the output but it is about outcome to get, which is, the awareness and increasing capability of the farmers to implement it sustainably.

“Based on what General Director of Food Plantation, Suwandi told, in the future we hope that our farmers would understand more about the integrated pest control (IPC), starting from the good agricultural practices, advantaging the natural enemies, and regular supervision, so that our farmers would be expert in the IPC,” he said.

He also mentioned that the increasing awareness of the farmers to GP to the sustainability of agriculture would welfare them. Based on what Minister of Agriculture, Syahrul Yasin Limpo told that the food production should keep running, but it needs to do anything to increase the farmers’ welfare because they are the spears of food security in our country.

“So the agriculture or food procurement should not stop especially during the pandemic of Covid-19. This is the time to be the heroes of food to save this nation. Make sure that the food production should not be postpone, and the farmers get better,” he said. (A2)