Coffee Plantations and the Roadmap for Welfare: Book |

---

The development of coffee farming in Gayo is also the result of the persistence of the local government, both at the district and provincial levels. The programs that are designed and implemented aim to make agriculture have a sustainable perspective. Sustainable agricultural development describes an agricultural system that is able to maintain productivity and its usefulness for society without limits. Such a system in some cases requires saving resources, being socially supportive, commercially competitive, and environmentally friendly.

Many farming communities have adopted the concept of sustainable agriculture. For them, it is quite urgent. Sustainability has become an integral component of government policy for the agricultural sector, commercialization of its products, and non-profit. All of that is starting to be woven into an integrated agricultural policy. More and more farmers are incorporating an integrated and innovative approach into their own businesses (Gold, 2007).

Food security policies do indeed refer more to the government. In fact, the participation of other actors such as academics and college graduates is needed to be able to independently help the community realize family food security.

In this case, universities also have an important role to play in helping the government realize sustainable agricultural development. As stated in the Tridharma of Higher Education, there are teaching, research, and community service activities. By teaching students, it is expected to produce superior graduates who are able to compete in the global workforce.

In addition, universities can help the government create innovations and technologies that are beneficial to agriculture, for example with appropriate agricultural technology, superior seeds, fertilizers, to optimizing communication technology for marketing agricultural products. In the field of community service, universities play a role in transferring research technology innovations that have been carried out so that the community can understand and use the technology, so that it is expected to improve the quality and productivity of people's agriculture (Shamadiyah & Martina, 2018).

Commercial agriculture has increased farmers' incomes and living standards, thereby reducing poverty among the majority of the Indonesian population (Central Bureau of Statistics, 2016). Indonesians are involved in the production of various commercial crops: oil palm, sugar cane, tea, tobacco to rice, cocoa, and spices.

---

---

The coffee has become an important commercial crop because it has a large market share. Indonesia is the fourth largest global producer or 6 percent of the world's coffee supply of 739,000 tons (USAID Green Invest Asia 2019; Kansrini, Zuliyanti, Mulyani, and Pirmansyah, 2020). As much as 86 percent of Indonesian Arabica coffee is grown in Lintong, North Sumatra; Kintamani in Bali; and in Gayo, Aceh Province (Mega Amelia Putri et al. 2013).

There are worrying indications in agricultural development, namely when high population growth once again puts pressure on the supply and demand of rice. While rice is a staple food for millions of people in Asia. Issues that arise include increasing labor shortages, water scarcity, agricultural commercialization, pressure to liberalize rice trade, pressure on the resource base, location-specific issues, and changes in food consumption patterns.

All of this certainly has implications for many people, especially (poor) female farmers in rural areas. Transforming Asia’s scarce land resources must face an additional challenge: how to simultaneously increase the productivity of labor, water, and chemical fertilizers while preserving environmental health or soil conditions. The world will need more rice—about 60 percent more than current global production—to feed billions of people (IRRI, 1997).

Sustainable agriculture must align with the balance of environmental preservation, agricultural production, agricultural profitability, and community well-being.

The balancing act required by sustainable agriculture is made more difficult because it requires more than a single measure of success. Building a more sustainable agriculture also requires high farmer participation because farm families embody the complexity of multiple objectives at the micro level.

Sustainable agriculture requires strategies to engage stakeholders including: (i) educational methodologies that contribute to strengthening and enhancing individual, social, and organizational capacities; (ii) building agreements with different stakeholders with specific commitments; (iii) connecting women as agents of strategic change and social development; (iv) combining communication media to receive quality information; and (v) transdisciplinary approaches (Cuéllar-Gálvez et.al., 2018).[]

---