Institut Teknologi Bandung

Moreover, there is a negative paradigm from the people that consider farming as an outdated profession. The truth is that Indonesia has good agricultural prospects with its fertile soil, abundance of water, and high availability of sunlight.

The lack of interest in the younger generation in becoming a farmer is caused by their perception that agricultural activities are mainly composed of physical work. In fact, this happens because the utilization of advanced technology in the agricultural world lagged behind other sectors. Even though currently it is not impossible to utilize various supporting equipment to increase the efficiency of agricultural activity.

This was conveyed by Teddy Irawan in the Studium Generale ITB course KU4078, Wednesday (21/9/2022). Teddy is a former office employee that has spent decades of his life working in big cities with high salaries. However, he decided to become a farmer.

*Farmer, a noble profession

Being a farmer is a noble decision. Farmer is responsible for ensuring the most crucial human activity, that is food production. As long as humans still exist, then the role of a farmer will always be needed to fulfill our food needs. To become a farmer in this modern age, we need a strong willingness to always learn and to endure every paradigm that may come our way.

The development of agricultural technology to date still mainly utilizes labor-intensive principles. To increase efficiency, indeed this concept needs to be transformed using technology. With the help of technology, we can increase agricultural productivity until we are able to supply our own domestic consumption.

Moreover, we also need to determine what kind of agricultural segment we will choose. Teddy introduced three agricultural segments, those are seed farmer, mix farmer, and vegetable farmer.

Teddy himself focuses on the seed and mix farmer segments. The seed farmer segment has great potential because its products came from superior seeds. The selection of seeds is important for the farmer because it is where they spent most of their expenses. Therefore, by producing his own seeds can cut his expenses to be more efficient.

In farming, Teddy implements a partnership system. The model that he offered is profit sharing and capital lending. He implements the profit-sharing model for farmers that have the potential to be able to cultivate their land well and have sufficient land size, while on the other hand lacking still lacking competency. For this, Teddy offered 50-50 profit sharing in addition to providing help to the farmer on how to manage their farm more properly. The capital lending model has some variations, one of those is lending seeds that after harvested will be bought at a lower price.

Not forgetting that in agriculture we need to pay attention to the planting schedule. The planting schedule is determined by the availability of the commodity, harvest quality in different seasons, selling price (impacted by religious events), and soil health. Furthermore, agriculture on its own is not enough, we also need to determine when the market is right to achieve higher selling prices.

A mindset of a farmer is similar to what a businessman has. The salary of an employee is guaranteed by their employer, while a businessman works for himself. This is what needs to be remembered when deciding to be a farmer, a farmer will only receive income after the harvest, not on the monthly basis like an employee.

"The benefit of being a farmer is that you can control your own working rhythm, target, working system, and how you manage your farm," said Teddy. He never regretted this big decision. For him, being a farmer is a fun and healthy profession because he directly works with nature.

Reporter: Lukman Ali (Mechanical Engineering, 2020)
Translator: Favian Aldilla R (Civil Engineering, 2019)