Digitalisasi Penyuluhan Pertanian di Era New Normal

Abstract

The agricultural sector was the least affected sector during the COVID-19 pandemic. While other sectors experienced negative growth, only the agricultural sector had positive growth. The COVID-19 pandemic is the driving force behind the digitalization of agricultural extension and a solution when conventional extension services cannot be implemented. In addition, other factors are the development of information and communication technology, the industrial revolution 4.0, the importance of connectivity and the decreasing number of agricultural extension workers. The purpose of this study is to determine the factors that accelerate the digitization of agricultural extension and identify steps to realize the implementation of digitalization of agricultural extension in the new normal era. This research was conducted in Kudus Regency using qualitative methods. The approach used in this research is descriptive. The condition of agricultural extension before and after the COVID-19 pandemic is that there are fewer young farmers, there are still few farmers who have information and communication technology devices and farmers' access to digital technology is still small. Therefore, the efforts that need to be made towards digitizing agricultural extension in the new normal era are: (1) developing the competence of agricultural extension workers in digitizing extension, (2) increasing the capacity of farmers, especially farmer group administrators and Gapoktan to information technology, (3) increasing farmer access towards mass media and information and communication technology, (4) creating mechanisms and systems that allow the digital transformation process from agricultural extension to poktan/gapoktan administrators and farmers to take place properly and (5) increasing the role of farmer organizations.