The Politeknik Negeri Semarang Student Creativity Program Team for the Application of Science and Technology (PKM-PI) consists of 7 members consisting of Muhammad Barid (Mechanical Engineering), Muhammad Indra S (Mechanical Engineering), Riris Annisa T (Mechanical Engineering), Daniel Nicholas M (Mechanical Engineering ), Abdul Rozak (Mechanical Engineering), Rafiq Adriyanto (Mechanical Engineering) and Reynata Wulandari (Business Administration) succeeded in creating an innovative automatic potato harvester (Small Soil Digger). This tool was made with the aim of increasing the productivity and efficiency of the potato harvesting process in Serang Village, Wonosobo Regency.
Serang Village is a village located in Kejajar District, Wonosobo Regency. The majority of residents in this subdistrict are vegetable farmers, with the main commodity being potatoes with annual production reaching 447,060 tons per year.
The PKM-PI Polynes team collaborates with the Serang Village farmer group, Adhigunafarm Farmer Group, which has 25 potato farmers as members. The problems faced by these farmers are the decreasing interest of the younger generation in agriculture and the potato harvesting process which requires a lot of money to hire workers and takes a long time. Therefore, the PKM Polines Team, chaired by Muhammad Barid, provided a solution by implementing an automatic potato harvesting machine.
The implementation of the Small Soil Digger is one of the steps in agricultural mechanization in Indonesia to attract the interest of the younger generation in the agricultural sector so that agricultural productivity can continue and increase. The way this tool works is by using a tractor as a towing tool, so that the conveyor and digging knife will automatically move to dig the soil, and the potatoes will automatically be lifted by the conveyor and into the container on the back hook. So farmers don't need to pick potatoes one by one from the ground, so the potato harvesting process can be more efficient
This tool will continue to be evaluated in order to achieve maximum results so that it can be used as a reference for agricultural mechanization efforts in Indonesia and can be mass produced so that it can be applied in the agricultural sector, especially potato farming throughout Indonesia.
source: kompasiana.com