South Kalimantan receives a competitive grant of IDR3 billion to produce millennial farmers

Banjarmasin, S Kalimantan (ANTARA) - The Ministry of Agriculture has distributed a competitive grant worth IDR3 billion for capital assistance to produce millennial farmers in South Kalimantan in the Youth Entrepreneurship and Employment Support Services (YESS) program.

"This assistance has been distributed to the beneficiaries in three districts, namely Banjar, Tanah Laut, and Tanah Bumbu," said Head Master of state vocation school SMK-PP Negeri Banjarbaru Budi Santoso in Banjarmasin, Saturday.

YESS program in South Kalimantan, he said, is targeted to produce 5,000 millennial farmers, some 2,000 of them have been intervened.

For six years from 2019 and ending in 2025, the YESS program tries to guide and help young people who have a high interest in entrepreneurship in agriculture, from cultivation, animal husbandry, and plantation.

The Ministry of Agriculture together with the International Fund For Agricultural Development (IFAD) seek to produce millennial entrepreneurs with an age range of 17-39 years.

Budi said the system implemented --starting from business proposal, internship, to competitive grant and next year will be added with technical training-- is believed to be able to produce 2.5 million millennial farmers to replace farmers who are now dominated by the elderly.

In addition to South Kalimantan, three other provinces also became pilots, namely West Java, East Java, and South Sulawesi.

According to Budi, the State Agricultural Development Vocational High School (SMK-PP) Banjarbaru, which is a technical implementing unit under the Agricultural Counseling and Human Resources Development, Agricultural Education Center, of the Ministry of Agriculture, has the task of making the YESS program successful.

"South Kalimantan should be able to provide many young, visioner farmers with a strategic position as food buffer for the country's new capital in East Kalimantan," he said.