Indonesia Needs 27,269 Additional Agricultural Instructors

Jakarta, Aug 27 (Antara) - Indonesia additionally requires 27,269 agricultural instructors in order to implement the "one village one instructor" policy, according to the Agriculture Ministry. Minister of Agriculture Suswono stated during the inauguration of the Agricultural Instructors Academy here on Wednesday that currently, there were only 47,955 agricultural instructors, which comprised 27,476 public servant instructors and 20,479 freelance instructors. With 75,224 villages spread across Indonesia, Suswono was of the viewpoint that an instructor should cover one or two villages. "This situation is not in line with Law Number 19/2013 on the Protection and Empowerment of Farmers that ideally required one instructor for each village. Hence, we need to add 27,269 instructors," he emphasized. Suswono was also aware of the fact that although the needs continued to increase, but the quantity or quality of agricultural instructors failed to meet the professional standards. The minister of agriculture inaugurated 598 public servant agricultural instructors from academies in six cities: Medan, Bogor, Magelang, Malang, Gowa, and Manokwari. "This number is relatively small if we compare it with the ideal needs of one instructor for one village," Suswono reiterated. Therefore, he urged the Agricultural Instructors Academy to constantly innovate, so that its graduates will be work-ready and cooperate with the farmers in order to be independent and competitive. As of now, the Agricultural Instructors Academy has 4,993 alumni, comprising 333 plantation program graduates, 2.7 thousand farm program graduates, and 1,975 agricultural program graduates.