"The accumulation of vocational and high school student products per year is up to 1.2 tons; this is also our commitment that must be fulfilled to entrepreneurs and parties or companies," Head of the Banda Aceh and Aceh Besar Regional Education Office Mohd Iqbal informed here on Wednesday.
Iqbal said that the 1.2 tons of agricultural commodities produced by the students were not processed into food and other ingredients, but were in the form of plants such as oranges, lemons, organic rice, organic chilies, and organic potatoes.
Then, many of those agricultural products are processed into local products that can be consumed, such as Acehnese food or drinks, he said.
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"Some are commodity products, and some have been processed, for example, (to make) perfume, lemon drinks, chips, and various other processed products," he informed.
Iqbal said that the students planted the crops directly on approximately 15 hectares of land spread across Banda Aceh and Aceh Besar. The farming area belongs to the SMK.
The processed products of the SMK were accommodated by many entrepreneurs in Aceh for later remarketing, he added.
Therefore, Iqbal said that his office will continue to maximize production of students' agricultural products. For that reason, in the near future, a product exhibition will be held and guests ranging from entrepreneurs to teachers will be invited so that the demand increases, he added.
"We will maximize this because if the SMK product runs, the economic sector will move, and it could reduce poverty; even students will be challenged to compete with other products," he said.
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Translator: Rahmat Fajri, Raka Adji
Editor: Rahmad Nasution
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