Agricom.id, JAKARTA – Vice Director of Institut Pertanian Bogor (IPB), Drajat Martianto took the people of Indonesia to advantage the narrow areas and house yard to plant vegetables and fruits. He thought that this important to realize the food security nationally through sustainable food diversification or family farming.

“The people of Indonesia need to diversify food to increase their daily food consumption quality. The most important thing is that we have to contribute to enliven the agriculture in Indonesia,” he said, Friday (7/8) as in the official statement to Agricom.id.

He mentioned that planting various foods is a must to answer the future challenges. The food crisis threat told by food and agriculture organization (FAO) is the real one that every side needs to respond.

“I think, what ministry of agriculture has done by encouraging the universities to develop and guide food farming is very good. It means, we could tell the students to do agricultural diversification,” he said.

As the real thing to do, he claimed that IPB has managed every satuan kredit semester (SKS) in each theoretic subject with SKS in field subject.

“The students could stay in the village for about 1 (one) year or two semesters. In each semester, we took it as 20 SKS. They do not need to go to the campus for they learn in many villages. Of course, they have to do this (food diversification),” he said.

In IPB, Drajat continued, the field practice is categorized as Kuliah Kerja Nyata Tematik Domisili (KKNTD). This program, besides to do food diversification, is about to develop the farmers as well.

KKNTD is about to prioritize the field practice by supervising the agriculture production system in many villages where the students live. It covers every student in every major in IPB.

“We also involve the students majoring the technology in the management process. Just like what Minister of Agriculture, Syahrul Yasin Limpo told, we should not only process but also manage the logistic system,” he said.

In the previous, Minister Syahrul Yasin Limpo told that the food diversification is the way of the government to encourage the various, balance, and safe food consumption. It is about to represent the hopes and needs of the people of Indonesia so that the food security remains good and strengthens the existence of the good country.

“Today we campaign the local food diversification as our property and culture. It means that we have not only rice, but others, such as, bulbs, corn, sorghum, sago, potato, pumpkin, and others,” he mentioned. (A2)