The Internet to Overcome Rural Disparities

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Digital technology triggers transparency, promotes local products and attracts youths living in villages. Digital literacy can no longer be delayed.

JAKARTA, KOMPAS— Internet users keep increasing, spreading and opening regional isolation. Waves of change are emerging from villages.

In Gelaranyar village, Pagelaran district, Cianjur regency, West Java, for instance, palm sugar makers gain marketing benefits through social media. Demand comes from Bandung, Sumedang and Bekasi.
The region’s prized product managed by the Mugilancar Village Owned Enterprise (BUMDes) since 2018 is highly demanded by the market. “The income is around Rp 10 million per month,” said Mugilancar BUMDes director Dadeng Sutaryadi, 33, on Saturday (August 17, 2019).
The BUMDes buys farmers’ palm sugar at Rp10,000 per kilogram. Previously, when middlemen were in control, the highest price was only Rp 7,000 per kg.
The empowerment of the village’s potential has changed its working orientation. Over the last two years the number of Indonesian migrant workers from the village has declined. In 2017 there were 150 migrant workers, today the total is less than 50.
Uyun, 40, a former migrant, has chosen not to return to the Middle East. “It’s more comfortable in this village. With the BUMDes, farmers’ palm sugar is bought at a high price,” she said.
KOMPAS/DAHLIA IRAWATI
A RiTX sensor detects soil conditions on Sunday (18/8/2019) at a community farm in Situbondo regency, East Java. The Villages, Disadvantaged Regions and Transmigration Ministry is running a smart farming pilot project in Situbondo as part of its rural empowerment and development program.
From palm sugar, Uyun and her husband earn Rp 2.46 million monthly, rising from Rp1 million per month previously.
In Situbondo, East Java, agriculture based on sensor technology (or smart farming) has invigorated Battal village. The accuracy of paddy planting like fertilization, irrigation and rainfall through cell phones reduces the cost of fertilization by 50 percent and boosts harvests.
Young people also find farming more interesting. “There’s the element of technology that can be learned. So far agriculture has been perceived as mud, dirt and drenching,” said Jayono, 22, who had earlier been unwilling to help his father’s farm work.
Digital literacy
Based on an analysis of data from 159 community service assignment (KKN) units of Gadjah Mada University (UGM) in 32 provinces from June to August 2019, the factor of information technology has become one of the triggers for rural changes. In the hands of entrepreneurial and influential village youth figures, adaptation to products of digital technology brings about concrete changes.
In Lembang, West Bandung, for example, the marketing coverage and vegetables prices of farmers in Suntenjaya village have grown sustainably high after becoming partners of a pilot business in the Sayurbox network.
Farmers receive orders via cell phone and then pack their produce for delivery. In Lembang alone there are 5,100 Sayurbox partners from dozens of farmer groups. “My previous daily turnover of Rp 5 million has now reached Rp 15 million per day,” said Agus Sopian, 25, a vegetable farmer.
With the expanding digital ecosystem backed by ever growing internet penetration in the Indonesian archipelago, adaption to changes in all villages is inevitable. “Digital literacy should be realized from now on. It can no longer be delayed,” said the disadvantaged region development director general at the Villages, Disadvantaged Regions and Transmigration Ministry, Samsul Widodo.
This emphasis, said Samsul, was among other things intended to anticipate even faster and more extensive internet connections in villages by 2021.
The result of a survey by the Indonesian Internet Service Providers Association (APJII) and Polling Indonesia from March 9 to April 14, 2019 shows that out of the Indonesian population of 264.1 million, 171.1 million (64.8 percent) access the internet. Based on the 2018 Internet User Penetration Survey, in a year the number of internet users is up by 10.2 percent. The survey involved 5,900 people through interviews with the aid of questionnaires (Kompas, May 31, 2019).
At the rural level, Samsul has concluded a memorandum of understanding with unicorn company Tokopedia to build centers of entrepreneurship by utilizing BUMDes offices, two of which have been set up in Subang and Cianjur. There, officers are ready to help residents wishing to start selling products to digital economic networks. Even one person will be served in order to learn entrepreneurship through direct experience. “We should begin. Concepts or ideas alone aren’t enough,” he said. Apart from villages, memorandums have also been signed with 34 colleges in several regions to open entrepreneurship corners.
Technological intervention is also being undertaken in disadvantaged regions, including the introduction of smart farming in West Pasaman, West Sumatra, which as of recently is no longer classified as disadvantaged. Dompu in West Nusa Tenggara is now also being explored.
The campus program
One of the ways of preparing the villages is benefiting from the KKN program. “The KKN program includes the goal of village internet connections. It concerns how to create websites and market village potential products,” said Sambul, who had just returned from an inspection of Jember University’s KKN on Pangkajene Islands, South Sulawesi.
KOMPAS/DAHLIA IRAWATI
A Tokelan village official shows on Monday (19/8/2019) a digital image of privately owned rice fields in Panji district, Situbondo regency, East. The Hara mobile app digitally maps the rice fields for their owners to use as collateral for agricultural loans.
The same program was launched by UGM, involving 5,372 students assigned to 32 provinces. Last year more than 6,000 students joined the KKN program. In general, it is a village empowerment program. “What’s popular is ecotourism development. People have become aware that they can sell something without exhausting natural resources. They can offer natural panoramas. That’s the current trend,” said the head of the UGM sub-directorate of KKN, Ambar Kusumandari. (CHE/SEM/TAM/DIA/NCA/GSA)

Editor:
naranasrullah

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