Recently Papua has highlighted the government in increasing its productivity, especially in the agricultural sector. Keerom’s Regent, Piter Gusbager, appreciated highly in the ranks of the Ministry of Agriculture on agriculture in Papua. He said, at present the condition of Keerom’s food barn or food estate continues to develop well.
“It so happens that the corn we are harvesting this month is a superior seed which was also planted with Mr. Minister (Syahrul Yasin Limpo) last March. We are grateful that the results reached 7.5 tons per hectare, “Piter said, in his press release, Ahad (9/7/2023).
RI President’s Visit, Ir. H. Joko Widodo in 2021 on the agenda of Work Visits in the Province of West Papua became the point of reversing the concern of the Central Government for agricultural activities in Papua. The series of activities carried out during the visit was planting corn seeds in Sorong District accompanied by the Minister of Agriculture, the Speaker of the RI DPR, and the Governor. RI President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) strongly encourages West Papua to become an agricultural commodity producer in eastern Indonesia.
Therefore, Pak Jokowi called on the Minister of Agriculture and the Governor of West Papua to increase synergy and agricultural productivity in Sorong Regency and also all districts in West Papua and all regions of Papua that have sectors of agriculture. Increasing agricultural acceleration in West Papua in realizing national food security is one of the efforts made to realize President Joko Widodo’s direction to make each region a food granary
Since April 28, 2022, the Government of the Province of Papua has held a Ramadan peasant and bazaar market in the middle of downtown Jayapura. This activity is the support of the Papuan Provincial Commanders in an effort to guarantee basic food needs ahead of the upcoming Larang.
In 2023, Piter claimed to be grateful because so far the agricultural sector has grown into a buffer pole that can strengthen the economic conditions of the surrounding community. In fact, he called agriculture part of a healthy source of nutrition for the development of superior HR in Keerom.
Reported from one of the information media, Republika.co.id Piter said “I want to say that I want to fix the Keerom problem to fix the agricultural sector. If you want to overcome poverty in this region, complete the farm, if you want to improve the welfare of the community, take care of the farm. Why? Because agriculture is the main symbol of community empowerment. So I am a high appreciation to Mr. Minister and Mr. President for the great attention to Papua agriculture,”.
In general there are two types of traditional agriculture in Papua. First, reserves move in mountainous areas. Second, wetland farming settles in coastal areas. For example is agriculture in the Baliem Valley area and around Lake Wissel. Moving reserves are applied in hillside and foothill areas, while settled agriculture is carried out at the bottom of valleys and river banks.
Resistance moves, according to agricultural researchers, are usually applied in soils with low fertility rates. Meanwhile, settled agriculture is carried out in fields with high fertility rates and is one form of adaptation due to an increasingly dense population.
All of these efforts are expected by the President to be able to increase agricultural productivity in all agricultural sectors in Papua. To increase productivity, the government also continues to encourage the use of agricultural technology, increase access to capital, to capacity to increase human resources (HR).
