Technology advancement has brought people to digitize every aspect of activities, especially in this industrial revolution 4.0. In agriculture, for instance, digital technology has emerged new technology or internet of thing, known as Smart Farming. But in reality, problem that often occurs is related to high consumption culture.
Responding to the problem, Department of Agribusiness of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta (UMY) conducted a seminar on ‘Roles and Strategies of Agriculture in the Industrial Revolution Era 4.0’ at Amphitheatre of Graduate School of UMY on Saturday (9/3).
Former Deputy Minister of Trade in the era of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono Dr. Ir. Bayu Krinamurthi, M.Si. attended the seminar as a keynote speaker. He stated that agribusiness managers have to fulfill challenges in this disruptive era. He contended that agribusiness in Indonesia is still unable to compete and denote concrete breakthroughs in technology utilization, particularly in marketing sector of agribusiness.
There are four main online platforms selling goods and services, namely Gojek, Traveloka, Bukalapak, and Tokopedia. Those are known as unicorns, start-up companies established by Indonesians. Bayu uttered that an agricultural sector is now pioneering a new innovation called Trubus.id to fulfill the demand in the era of Industrial Revolution 4.0. He conveyed, “Actually in sector of agribusiness we have a similar innovation to those unicorns, but its level is still pretty distant from those advanced unicorns. The problem confronted by the Trubus.id is that consumers still find difficulties in gaining fresh vegetables. Another problem is that the products are not always available in the store when they demand them. Thus, Trubus.id needs to be thrived in this era.”
Indeed, agriculture should transform into millennial farming which focuses on technology and digital farmers. An agricultural marketing sector is still incapable to evolve through online trading. However, an agricultural sector can respond to technological development utilizing modern and sophisticated equipment.
Bayu added that nowadays people have invented advanced agricultural equipment, namely technology-based tractor, smart farming data, and smart tractor, used to indicate the depth of soil which is suitable to plant vegetables, fruits, or other agricultural products. This innovation can ease works of farmers. Furthermore, the technology also secures their agricultural data.
“Smart farming is an amalgamation of technology, information, and communication into engine, equipment, and censor of an agricultural production system. This system enables automatic provision of data and information. I hope that every student of UMY will strike new agricultural innovations in the future. It is in line with a UMY’s vision, bringing benefits to the ummah. In this case, technology will someday bring benefits to all of us,” maintained Bayu.
As for Bayu, a main problem of the industrial revolution era 4.0 is related to consumption behavior in the society. Productive behavior in Indonesia is still quite undeveloped, not only in an agricultural sector but also in every sector. Moreover, there is a challenge to manage alteration in the agricultural sector. “Other than that, we should commence a change to comply with demands of skills and abilities and begin to alter competitive patterns and behavior. Hopefully, the era of industrial revolution 4.0 enables us to become more productive, qualified, and consistent,” expected Bayu.
