Budiman Sudjatmiko Invites Indonesian Youth To Anticipate Food Crisis

Illustration (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - Chairman of the Indonesian Innovators 4.0 Movement, Budiman Sudjatmiko, invites Indonesian youths who have completed their education abroad to return to their country to support development, especially in facing the threat of a food crisis and energy crisis.

Budiman said the invitation started with his meeting with the Chairperson of the Central Executive Board of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP) Megawati Soekarnoputri in Jakarta, Tuesday, July 12.

"We talk more about the past, talk about the struggle for democracy in the past, the New Order era, the events of July 27, 1996, and so on. But in the end we talk more about how to deal with the food and energy crisis," Budiman said as quoted by ANTARA, Sunday. , July 17th.

Furthermore, the PDIP politician said that the discussion about the food crisis and the energy crisis arose because Megawati knew that she gathered many young Indonesians at home and abroad who had great attention to energy issues and agricultural technology.

Therefore, he said, Megawati, who is also the Chair of the Steering Committee of the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) asked about the possibility of young people who had just graduated from college abroad to return to the country, to assist development in villages in the future. facing a food and energy crisis.

According to him, Megawati asked the question because when the chairman of the BRIN Steering Committee discussed with President Joko Widodo, he received information that around 40 countries would go bankrupt due to the food crisis and energy crisis.

"Well, because they lack food and all kinds of things, it is inevitable that these countries will one day 'invade' Indonesia to ask for food from Indonesia, which has fertile food," said Budiman.

However, before helping other countries, he said, Indonesia must be independent to meet domestic needs first in anticipation of the threat of a food crisis.

Thus, after Indonesia's domestic food needs are met, the rest can be used to help 40 other countries that have or are about to go bankrupt.

In this regard, Budiman said that his party seeks to invite Indonesian human resources at home and abroad to return to the country, in order to jointly develop all village potentials to anticipate the threat of a food crisis.

"Incidentally, at the end of July, I was asked to speak at an international conference on village development organized by various institutions in Germany, including the German PPI (Indonesian Student Association)," he said.

He admitted that he was asked to act as a keynote speaker at the international conference, so he would use the opportunity to follow up on the results of his talks with Megawati.

"I will connect it with the agenda to deal with the world food crisis and the world energy crisis," said Budiman.

In fact, not long after his meeting with Megawati, he admitted that he immediately contacted his friends who are agricultural biotechnology experts and most of them are still abroad to be invited to develop vertical farming in Indonesia, so that they can save land.

According to him, terraced agriculture can be used as an effort to increase production in addition to being a solution in overcoming problems that arise due to the conversion of agricultural land.

"Very well, because later we will use Internet of Things (IoT) technology for productivity and control of water use," he said.

He said the multilevel agricultural technology would soon be implemented in a number of areas because the threat of a food crisis was very real.

"In August, I will gather rural economic activists, both BUMDes and cooperatives. The activity will be held at Algorithm Hill to follow up on my conversation with Mrs. Megawati," said Budiman.