Digital Farming: The Effective Solution to Develop Sustainable Agricultural System Indonesia

In the vast world of modernization, technological advancement has now shown immense growth towards every field of humanity. One of these important fields is agriculture. The advancement of agriculture technology has now created modern farms with modern operation that now focuses towards efficiency, safety, and most importantly, sustainability such as the Digital Farming system. As a part of the Sustainable Development Goals, the agriculture sector is an important element in achieving the ‘Zero Hunger’ goals since it integrates in specific targets such as ending hunger, improving nutrition, achieving food security, and implementing sustainable agriculture (Defait, 2019). 

However, in an effort to achieve agricultural sustainability, there are some major challenges that become a huge concern for the world which is farmer’s education and productivity. There is a correlation between a farmer’s education and productivity, this can be reflected towards how there are  farmers nowadays that still use traditional farming methods over modern farming methods. Education is important in the improvement of agricultural productivity, because it helps to improve farmers' knowledge on making better choices by alleviating their technical capability. However in Indonesia, education and productivity are not just the problem that obstructs sustainability, but rather poverty and unemployment as the root of the causes. According to studies, Indonesia places the second highest number of poverty and unemployment rates in ASEAN countries (lokadata.id., n.d.). In which poverty increased around 1,16 to 3,78 million and the number of layoffs increased to 3 million since the start of COVID-19 (Hartanto, 2020). Because of this, Indonesia is in an agricultural sustainability crisis due to the lack of concentration towards sustainability concepts and advanced knowledge or approach to the sustainability system. Not to mention, social stigmas about working in the agriculture sector.

In order to develop an advanced modern agriculture system, then we need to take a look at our current systems. As one of the world’s major agricultural nations, Indonesia is diverse in all kinds of commodities for food crops and plantations which serves as the nation's economic backbone as well as a huge contributor of export. As a matter of fact, farming systems in Indonesia have always been diverse since it is divided into four categories such as; paddy fields, secondary crops fields, industrial crops, and agroforestry (Suayib, 2016).  However, Indonesia is still not able to provide welfare for the citizens and farmers itself since the total production has not yet met the entire domestic demands and the majority of farmers still remain among the lower-income citizens. Furthermore, some of these agricultural systems rely mostly on chemicals and fertilizers which poses a threat towards environmental sustainability. Because of this, it is necessary to develop technological approaches such as digital farming technology. Digital farming is a program for farmers to manage  their businesses  with agrotechnology assistance. This technology allows farmers to indicate risks by using various applications that can predict the possibility of rain, pests, and disease attacks. Aside from that, this technology also helps in indicating harvest schedules, fertilization schedules, tillage schedules, and marketing time. Using this digital technology will be a great help towards Indonesian farmers and also creates a more sustainable way of farming. Such benefits of digital farming are; higher crop productivity, decrease use of raw materials which will keep food prices down, and increase worker’s safety.

Digital farming has a great potential in improving agricultural systems as well as youth involvement in agriculture. Although several digital systems are now trying to be initiated, that does not mean the solution stops there. In pursuing a modern and a sustainable system, age and background is a crucial factor in achieving agricultural sustainability due to the complex problems that the agriculture sector faces such as poor diets, poverty, water or land scarcity, and climate change (Diama et al., 2020).  In order to address these ongoing issues, the role of young people is important in the agriculture sector because young people can contribute in new ideas and innovative ways towards sustainable agriculture  especially with their access towards technology. With the  productive working age groups that are now dominated by youths and the majority of the people having  access to the internet, Indonesia is very well positioned in implementing the Digital Farming System in the agriculture sector.

By: Agatha P. Lidwina

Further Readings:

Latkovikj, M. T., & Popovska, M. B. (n.d.). How Millenials, Gen Z, and Technology Are Changing The Workplace Design.
Partoyo. (2020). Farming in the Era of Industrial Revolution 4.0: The Environmental Challenges.