UNAIR NEWS – In the last three months, vegetable crops grew in empty land around the houses of residents of Keputih urban community, Surabaya. The kinds of vegetables planted include mustard greens, spinach, kale, and lettuce.
Mufidah Anisah, one of the recipients of Karya Salemba Empat (KSE) scholarship said that this is one of the social projects initiated by KSE Universitas Airlangga (UNAIR) together with Kimia Farma. The student of Faculty of Public Health (FKM) continued that the program entitled Educative Hydroponics was developed so people could produce their food independently.
“We want to foster a sense of public interest in urbanfarming. Even though there are not many harvests, the people have felt its benefits, ” she concluded.
Mufidah said that the process of realizing Educative Hydroponics was quite long. Moreover, there are many obstacles due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Previously, continued Mufidah, 25 people involved in the program were given intensive training three times.
Now people have learned a lot and got used to it. Some residents have even started to build simple hydroponics at home.
“The results are now quite felt economically. The community is more enthusiastic about marketing hydroponic products more widely, ” she said.
According to Mufidah, the Educative Hydroponics program has been running very well. It was initiated in 2019, and it has been registered officially.
“We have just been registered officially with the decree from Keputih Urban Community office. The name is the Keputih Bersemi Urbanfarming Farmers Group, ” she said.
It is a program originated from a competition held by Kimia Farma. KSE UNAIR excels among other participants from several universities in Indonesia and named among top five and received funding.
Mufidah revealed that residents are very enthusiastic about managing hydroponic farming. The residents even make daily task schedule to take care of the crops.
Mufidah hoped that the residents can maintain their enthusiasm in managing hydroponic farming. So that urban farming activities in Keputih can be an educational forum for anyone who wants to learn about hydroponics.
“We hope that residents can become urban farming cadres. If they get abundant yields, people will be healthy, their economy can be improved, and sales will expand, ” she hoped. (*)
Author: Erika Eight Novanty
Editor: Binti Q. Masruroh
