HIMASEPERTA’s First Team Secures Funding from the 2024 ORMAWA PPK Program, Promoting the “Agrotrisula” Concept to Empower the Youth

The HIMASEPERTA FP Unsri team has become the first to secure funding from the 2024 PPK ORMAWA program, as announced on May 24, 2024, by the PPK ORMAWA Dikti. The HIMASEPERTA PPKO implementation team consists of 15 members from the 2022 and 2023 cohorts. There are two other implementation teams that qualified to represent Sriwijaya University: the Hima Farmasi team and the UKM U-read team. PPKO stands for the Student Organization Capacity Building Program. This program is a capacity-building initiative carried out by universities to improve the quality of student organizations (ormawa). Through the PPKO program, student organizations can improve their ability to carry out various activities, such as: community service, academic and extracurricular programs, and events that enrich campus life.

The HIMASEPERTA PPKO implementation team adopted the subtheme “Young Farmers’ Group” with the title PILAR: Implementation of the Agrotrisula Concept as a Strategy for Empowering the Younger Generation in Pulau Gemantung Village. The innovation proposed by the implementation team is based on the concept of sustainable Agrotrisula cultivation, aimed at the youth of Pulau Gemantung Induk Village, Tanjung Lubuk Subdistrict, Ogan Komering Ilir Regency.  The idea for this Agrotrisula cultivation innovation was inspired by the course material presented by Prof. H. Ir. Fachrurrozie Sjarkowi, M.Sc., Ph.D., a full professor in the Department of Agricultural Socioeconomics.  The Agrotrisula cultivation model implemented by the PPKO HIMASEPERTA implementation team consists of three main components: hydroponic farming, maggot farming, and biofloc aquaculture.

This proposal is the first one submitted by HIMASEPERTA to the PPK ORMAWA. It is a source of great pride for the HIMASEPERTA team to have been selected as one of the funding recipients out of 2,289 proposals submitted by 359 universities across Indonesia, especially since this marks the first time the Department of Agricultural Socio-Economics (SOSEK) at the Faculty of Agriculture (FP) of UNSRI has received such an opportunity. Of course, this achievement was made possible through the support of many parties: Sriwijaya University, the Department of Agricultural Socioeconomics, the faculty advisors to the implementation team, the faculty advisor for Sosek student affairs, fellow HIMASEPERTA members, the youth organization, and the government of Pulau Gemantung Induk Village, the volunteer implementation team, and other parties too numerous to mention individually. Through the implementation of this Agrotrisula cultivation innovation, it is hoped that the young generation of Pulau Gemantung Induk Village will be empowered to increase farmers’ income and well-being, as well as foster self-reliance within the PILAR community to further develop Agrotrisula cultivation. It is also hoped that this innovation will inspire the younger generation to become more knowledgeable about developing Indonesian agriculture.