UNS – Students of Universitas Sebelas Maret (UNS) Surakarta have once again achieved success on a national stage. This time, a remarkable achievement was accomplished by the students of the Agribusiness Study Program, Faculty of Agriculture (FP) UNS. They successfully garnered three awards simultaneously in the Agricultural Scientific Competition (Agtion) 2023 organized by the Universitas Pembangunan Nasional Veteran (UPN) “Veteran” East Java. They secured 1st place in the Business Plan Competition, 1st place in the Scientific Poster Competition, and became the Overall Champion of the UPN “Veteran” East Java Rector’s Cup.

Agtion 2023 is a national-level competition festival held by UPN “Veteran” East Java. Agtion consists of five competition categories, namely the Scientific Writing Competition, Business Plan Competition, Scientific Poster Competition, Photography, and Videography. This year’s Agtion is the first edition of the event and was attended by 450 participants from 30 universities across Indonesia.

Business Plan Competition

In the Business Plan Competition category, they designed a business named IoTanic. This is an integrated agricultural consulting service with high engines and IoT. IoTanic was created by the Digdaya Team consisting of Mahdaviqia Dharmawa, Aliffa Mahayu Swastiratu, and Wendy Yoga Artananda.

The Digdaya team raised issues they encountered during their participation in the Independent Campus Competition Program (PKKM) in Sukoharjo Regency. Farmers there complained about the increasingly expensive price of chemical fertilizers. This was exacerbated by the wastage of fertilizer due to improper dosing.

“They (farmers) complain about the increasing prices of chemical fertilizers, while they need to fertilize every planting season. This is worsened by the fact that farmers often don’t measure the chemical fertilizers properly, leading to wastage in precision farming,” Davi explained, Thursday (24/8/2023).

IoTanic was designed to assist farmers in implementing precision farming concepts. Davi explained that this concept accurately measures fertilizer requirements combined with data on soil nutrient conditions. Farmers can measure their doses, reduce costs, and increase agricultural productivity.

One of the advantages of this business design is its pricing. Iotanic has a cheaper rental price compared to its competitors. In addition, IoTanic’s measurements are integrated with an application and sensors.

“Our business advantage over competitors is in terms of pricing; IoTanic’s rental fee is cheaper. IoTanic is also integrated with an application and three sensors, making land measurement more accurate,” Davi said.

*Scientific Poster Competition*

In this competition category, Davi collaborated with Wendy to create a poster with an idea called Soplation. This is an idea that stands for soil and plant protection, referring to technology that can protect land and plants.

The severity of soilborne disease, a soil-transmitted disease, became the background for designing Soplation. This is an agricultural disease that causes significant losses to farmers. This disease is considered hard to detect, with most farmers realizing the presence of soilborne disease only after their entire plants are entirely affected. Hence, we need a system to detect soilborne diseases.

In the scientific poster, Davi explained that the role of the technology used is to detect soilborne disease through plant health and soil condition indexes. The data from both technologies is used to determine the presence of soilborne disease in the area. Davi also mentioned that the technology used in Soplation has never been applied before.

“Soplation can be applied to prevent losses in agriculture. In our initial projections, Soplation can increase rice commodity productivity by 15-20% and reduce fertilization costs by 5-10%,” he said.

Representing his colleagues, Davi expressed pride and emotion over the achievements. Agtion 2023 was their first offline competition participation, and it resulted in the most awards received. He hopes that this success will inspire them to participate in other competitions and motivate other students to excel and bring honor to UNS.

“We dedicate this victory to our beloved alma mater, UNS. Thanks to the entire academic community who supported and prayed for us,” Davi concluded. Humas UNS

Reporter: R. P. Adji

Editor: Dwi Hastuti