Maghfira Abida: Giving Back to Local Farmers using Cutting-Edge Technology

By Alumni UK Team, British Council Indonesia

05 September 2024 - 10:16

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Born and raised in a farming community in Magelang, Central Java, Maghfira Abida understands how crop farmers rely on the natural cycle of the weather to harvest good produce. This also means that Maghfira has an equally keen understanding on how climate change has disrupted the farmers’ livelihood, particularly given her expertise in geological engineering and disaster management.

“Climate change causes real damage, especially its hydrometeorological impact, and it happens in my hometown. The hilly and mountainous areas are highly affected, leading to crop failures and economic losses among the farmers,” she explains. “As a little girl, I experienced landslides, droughts and extreme weathers as well as earthquakes; these events have deeply influenced my path, propelling me towards a dedicated study aimed at understanding and mitigating their impacts. Through my study, and now with this project, my goal is to give back to the community that has nourished me my entire life by taking part in creating a climate-responsive agricultural system with community-based technology that saves as many lives as possible.”

The University College London alumna corroborates that the project implements precision agriculture technology that will “create a microclimate inside greenhouses that support the crops to grow optimally” with the assistance of sensors. “The Internet of Things (IoT) and Machine Learning will then pick up on the data that the sensors capture and decide on how to treat the plants precisely,” she continues. “This will ensure an optimised environment for the crops to grow well whenever there is drought, since that’s a time when crop failures or the possibilities of crop failure are very high. We aim to maintain the farmers’ survival as well as improve the quality of their produce.

Maghfira mentions that focusing on potatoes was a choice specifically made due to the item’s status as a staple in Indonesian households and its high content of carbohydrates. “I think it's a highly promising industry in agriculture given that there are already 270 locally active farmers in our focus area. I have also found local champions who already organised some potato farmers. The farmers also already have a willingness to improve their farming technology. I’m delighted that we can collaborate with them,” she adds.

More excitingly, the project also counts the involvement of Bank Indonesia. “Last year, we received assistance from Bank Indonesia via its social programme, who installed 5 greenhouses in our focus area. That made it easier for us to match our mission with theirs. We hope to collaborate more in the future when implementing this initiative as our technology will help optimise the operations of these greenhouses; without it, the greenhouses would not be operational at all. It’s a mutually beneficial collaboration.”

More than supporting local farmers via technology and economic empowerment, the project also aims to empower women in farming areas. “In the agriculture industry, women are only labourers, not the main players, since they usually only help their husbands or fathers. In hilly and rural areas, people tend to be very much set in the traditional notion that men have more power than women, so women cannot say their own opinions,” says Maghfira.

She continues, “That’s why this project’s other goal is to change this mindset and encourage the women to come up with their own initiatives, manage their own farms, make their own income, and become leaders in the long term. So it’s not just about changing the economy but also the social situation. In the short run, we will deploy the tools first and see how the technology is accepted and then developed by the locals. Ideally, it would require 1 or 2 years to know the pattern of the local climate and gauge the productivity or effectiveness of the tools.”

“That’s why our main principle is that we don’t want to change their society - we want to encourage them to change instead. We are not the main players, but they are. We simply aim to make them realise that they need to continue innovating and adapting with the uncertainties brought by climate change. We are simply the bridge to connect them with that goal,” she concludes.