Mentan-Menristekdikti Affirm the Importance of Innovation of Agriculture Industry

INDUSTRY.co.id - Jakarta - Minister of Agriculture Amran Sulaiman together with Minister of Research, Technology and Higher Education M. Nasir stressed the importance of national agricultural industry innovation development.

"If you want to develop agriculture must be mechanized, it must be with technology," said Minister of Agriculture while together Minister of Research and Technology of Agricultural Research and Development Agency of Agricultural Mechanization in Serpong, Tangerang Selatan, Banten, Thursday (1/3/2010).

According to Amran Sulaiman, a number of innovations in agricultural machine tools proved to accelerate production and increase productivity by as much as 40-50 percent.

For that, he said, the paradigm of agricultural sector development should be changed from traditional methods to a more modern mechanism with an approach to improve welfare for farmers.

"With the acceleration of harvest, then the production increases, then the farmers are also prosperous," he explained.

Minister of Agriculture also stated that the increase of agricultural machinery aid during President Joko Widodo's administration amounted up to many times compared to before.

Amran Sulaiman also reminded of the importance of agricultural aid given by the government to be used optimally because it always monitors and monitors periodically.

"We check and if it turns out that the aid of agricultural equipment does not make optimal then we will move the aid to the neighboring farmer's group," he said.

Meanwhile, the Minister of Research and Technology claimed that the modern science and engineering area of ​​agriculture in Serpong is an area designated by Kementan to develop agricultural innovation.

"I am very happy to be able to collaborate with Kementan," he told media crews.

He added that this synergy is expected to create better self-sufficiency, improve efficiency, and gain added value for the community.

For that, he said, it is expected that the coordination in the future can be really improved so that it can really add value, and so that the citizens can widely use the innovation of the agricultural sector.

Currently, Serpong Modern Science Park and Engineering Environment has built a number of supporting infrastructures such as gallery, controlled plantation house based on information technology, arrangement of micro irrigation system and embung, and arrangement of farm and farm road to support rice, corn, soybean, onion red, chili, and sugarcane.