If young people are asked about the career, how many people wants to be farmers? Perhaps, to be a farmer is not an obsession for young people, even though Indonesia besides maritime, has fertile agricultural areas for food crops and horticulture. There are some reasons related to the reluctance to be a farmer, for example, parents are not proud  enough if their children become farmers, the stigma of farmer life tends to be poor, not prospective for profit, and even it is considered not prestigious because of working with animal dung, soil and mud.

Formerly, I have paradigm that agriculture is not prospective, because it is our daily activity of people of Sumba, so farming is not something special and prospective in the midst of instant and modern era like today. But my paradigm has changed since I joined Stube-HEMAT Sumba training on topics related with Lives of Sumba Youth. Especially in September 2019, I had an opportunity to be one participant of Exposure Stube-HEMAT Yogyakarta program and I learned various things that added knowledge and experience there, such as journalism, photography, cross-stitch and agriculture. Learning about agricultural potencies opened my eyes to optimize idle land and found  high market demand for vegetables.

Having returned to Sumba, as a community leader, I was responsible to share inspirative ideas and  experiences from Stube HEMAT for the members of Ana Tana community. Based on data from Statistic Bureau (BPS) of East Sumba Regency in 2019, in terms of the frequency of planting food crops in Pandawai sub-district, there are 1.208 hectares land consisting of 941 hectares can be planted  rice once per year, 112 hectares can be planted rice twice per year and 75 hectares can be planted others. In addition, there are 80 hectares of paddy fields are left idle. The last condition of rice fields become an opportunity for young people to cultivate vegetables to fulfill household needs and supply the market demand.

At present, we have harvested vegetables, beside fulfilling our daily needs, we also sell the vegetables to market and vegetable stalls. The profits sale of vegetables are distributed equally to support the school needs of the community member. Working in this activity we have our principle of success from our commitment, saying “if not doing right now, no other opportunity come” and  “if not us, no other else”.  So, young people, never wait until growing older then becoming farmers. If you can start from now, why not? Be a successful young farmer by utilizing technological developments to increase knowledge about land management, crops cultivation and products marketing for the sake to improve lives of Sumba people. (Kristiani Pedi).