Introduction of Multifunction Weeding Tools to Increase the Efficiency of Rice Weeding Activity on Sloping Land to Farmer Group Tani Sejahtera, Rojomo Village, Wonosobo District, Central Java

Abstract

Wonosobo Regency is dominated by slopes where 80% of the land is careened for more than 20 degrees. In this condition, it is challenging to find a workforce for farming activity, resulting in a high cost for any agricultural activities—one of the activities that need much labor is the weeding activity. The introduction of appropriate technology is required to support agriculture’s sustainability which will efficiently reduce the production cost. This paper proposed an empowerment activity model for farmers in the slope area, which targeted two main goals: introducing the multifunction weeding tools to increase the rice weeding activity’s efficiency and increasing the farmer group competency in the operational management of the agricultural machinery. The empowerment activity was incorporated with a farmer group called Tani Sejahtera in Rojoimo village, Wonosobo. This group has become a model for other farmer groups owning several agricultural machineries and a workshop to develop appropriate technology in their farming. The empowerment was done through (1) the accompaniment in the appropriate weeding tool’s development from design to evaluation and (2) training for the farming group on the agricultural machinery’s operational management. These empowerment activities affected the farmer group’s independency accretion towards the appropriate technology development that is needed for the farming activities where the cost can be reduced, along with the farmer group's comprehension of agricultural machinery operational management is increased. This empowerment activity can be a model to escalate farmers’ independence in sloping land regarding the development and operational management of the appropriate agricultural tools and machinery.