"We are currently building, transforming traditional agriculture towards a modern one," he remarked at the student orientation event of Diponegoro University (Undip) in Semarang, Central Java, on Saturday.
According to him, the modern agriculture clusters which utilize agricultural technologies have been established in several regions, such as Central Kalimantan, South Kalimantan, Papua, and South Sumatra.
In front of around 16,000 new students, he encouraged them to build the country, including through the agriculture sector.
Nevertheless, he underscored that young people will not be interested in working in the agriculture sector if it does not generate profits and adopt high technologies.
"It must be profitable, their income should be higher than if they become civil servants," the minister said.
He noted that currently, around 27,000 young people have participated in his ministry's Millennial Farmers program, which is aimed at nurturing young people to become farmers.
On that occasion, he also underlined the key role of universities in developing the agriculture sector, particularly in generating ideas and new inventions of agricultural technologies.
According to the 2023 Agricultural Census of Statistics Indonesia (BPS), the number of millennial farmers with an age bracket of 19–39 years stood at 6.18 million, or around 21.93 percent of farmers in Indonesia.
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Translator: Zuhdiar Laeis, Raka Adji
Editor: Azis Kurmala
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