The abundant harvest produced by the community of vegetable farmers in Enam Village, Tarakan City often becomes a problem. The high supply of harvest does not match the available market demand. The consumers of the harvest mainly consist of the local residents and the harvest sale relies on the local collectors and markets. As a result, the unsold harvest has no value.
To address the issue of the vegetable farmer community in Enam village, Telkom University (Tel-U) students presented an innovation that could help the farmers to sell and monitor their harvest using the digital system in a website. This is a form of Tel-U’s contribution which is in line with the vision to be a research & entrepreneurial university. The innovation product is by the name of Vegetara.
Vegetara is an acronym from Vegetables Tarakan. The website is developed as a form of participation of Tel-U students in the Innovillage program, which is a program that provides a platform for students to engage in social activities by offering solutions to issues that are currently faced by the community.
Vegetara became a platform of information system and the vegetable harvest marketplace of the community in Enam village, Tarakan City. The platform is created by Tel-U students which are gathered in a team named “Merah (Red) Developer” team led by Agustio (Bachelor of Computer Engineering), and members Yosua Reynaldi Manurun (Diploma of Application Software Engineering) and Fahruly Liansyahputra P. (Bachelor of Telecommunication Engineering) and Reza Rendian Septiawan as academic supervisor from Bachelor of Computer Engineering.
“Vegetara is designed as a platform where farmers are informed of the estimation of their harvest schedule. Also, we have provided a marketplace to sell their vegetable harvest in the Enam village.” said Agustio.
The existence of Vegetara was warmly welcomed by the Enam village community. The economy of the farmers has improved due to the increase in market demand for harvest in Enam village. This is in accordance with the expectation for the creation of this tool, which is to obtain a wider market reach and reduce losses caused by abundant harvests.
In the future, the website will be further developed to adapt to the needs of the vegetable farmer community in Enam village and their consumers. It is hoped that by further developing the website, the village and community are able to address the harvest sales issue in the Enam village.
“The community is greatly assisted by the existence of the platform Vegetara as it has been helpful in improving the economy of the farmers due to the increase in market demand. However, the platform currently can only be accessed via a website. In the future, there will be further development by adapting to the needs of the community in Enam village and consumers, so that all users can comfortably use the platform.” concluded Agustio.
Author: Tia Hanna Diniasti | Editor: Daris Maulana | Foto: Agustio