RURAL UP

PROGRAM
Achieving Food Security
by Strengthen Rural Empowerment

JULY -AUGUST 2019

TAIWAN
Indonesia is well-known for its fertile soil, with all grain varieties could grow.
Any varieties of plant and diverse of sea creature in Indonesia is the
prominent of nature supplies in the world. Agriculture is a central sector of
the economic structure of Indonesia. In 1984, Indonesia has reached the
highest on production supplies and become one of the exporter country in
rice. “Swasembada Pangan” was a program initiated by the government to
improve and enhance not only production but also the supplies in crops
plants. However, the success of this program is doubtful since the program
only lasted for two years. However, agriculture, until today, is the main
structure of national economy Indonesia.

The stability of food price hit the low from national GDP in 2008, this impact
not only for rice price and many corps plants but also the farmers. Despite a
decline of its share of GDP over the last 50 years, agriculture still accounted
for 14% of GDP in 2014. In 2014, agriculture employed around 40.12 million
people, equal to 33% of the total Indonesian labor force. It is estimated that
a 7% per annum increase in smallholder productivity could result in a $50
billion increase in agriculture revenues by 2030. The average annual growth
of women entering the labor market is higher than men, but women continue
to face higher unemployment rates, less skilled work and lower wages, and
limited access to agriculture, forestry, and fisheries resources.

With more forecasting of intersect between agriculture and poverty, the

rural communities face more challenge than before. Furthermore, the
majorities’ poor in Indonesia live in rural areas. In 2014, some 13.8% of the
rural population was classified as weak, compared to 8.2% of the urban
population. They mainly participate in low-productivity jobs in agriculture
and low-end service sectors. In regional ASEAN, Indonesia becomes the
leading in low income for those living in the agricultural sector.
Eventhough Indonesia is still big four in agriculture in ASEAN, but the wealth of
farmers yet unknown. Farmers which constitute the most in rural communities are still
struggling to move out from poverty. Rural empowerment has become frequent
topics in the last four years since President Jokowi signed UU No. 6 in 2014. However,
the implementation is doubtful for the previous four years too. KEMENDESA (Ministry
of Village, Development of Disadvantaged Areas And Transmigration of the Republic
of Indonesia) released the data in 2016 about the impact of UU No. 6. It has resulted
in the construction of 60,000 kilometers of village roads, 1800 village market units,
and 11,000 buildings used for Early Childhood Education. However, Indonesian
Corruption Watch (ICW) said since the constitution of village prevail the number of
village head detained by KPK increased. These cases involved at least 139
perpetrators with state losses estimated to rise from IDR 10.4 billion in 2016 to IDR 30
billion in 2017 or almost tripled. In skepticism about the future of law of villages, there
many hopes that lean back on village laws.

Based on this problem, Asean Youth Development is initiated Rural Up Program in

Taiwan. We expected the outcomes from these events would create an agent for
agriculture in Indonesia especially in Rural Empowerment topics and elaborated
some insight from host countries to make a better condition in Indonesia.
Asean Youth Development Center is established to oversee the issues of youth in ASEAN
and focus on the social, economic, cultural, political, and security studies. Through
discussion and several programs, we aim to build awareness and increase the
competence of youths facing global completion. We believe that it takes collaboration,
cooperation, and real action among youth in ASEAN to enhance progress in the ASEAN
countries.

One of our concerns is to empower the youth of ASEAN is to empower the youth of
ASEAN. Our Organization focuses on processes that encourage youth to develop the Self-
potential and foster the self-confidence. The program is expected to make the youth to
actively contribute to deciding by overcoming the problems in a regional or global level.

ASEAN Youth Development Center program refers to a process that can help its members
and also all stakeholders involved in sharing information to achieve. Through the social
networking collaboration that is not limited to anyone, ASEAN youth can engage in
discussions which were held. At this point, each ASEAN youth can deliver their ideas and
collaborate to build a large circle of networking.

ASEAN Youth Development Center also encourage the youth to be a significant driver in
the growth of the world economy through the youth entrepreneurship and the creative
economy. With their spirit, innovation, creativity, and sophisticated, we believe that young
people can play an active role in the ASEAN economic resilience in ASEAN and the world.
In conducting this event, numbers of objective have been set, as follows:

• To accommodate, shared ideas, initiatives, lesson learned and experiences between youths,
experts and stakeholders through workshop and verbal discussion which later to be
implemented not only in host countries but also home countries.

• To improve the participants’ knowledge and skill through overseas experience and gaining best
practices from various stakeholders in synergies between agriculture with rural empowerment
and poverty reduction.

• To build international networks, and to support their needs in the future and to disseminate and
evaluate agriculture projects from participants and finding opportunity to synergize with rural
empowerment.

• To reinforce their competency in preparing the entrance of ASEAN Economic Community and
to presenting the Forum as an avenue of exchange and relevant learning experiences based on
actual projects, and as a platform for conversations about the challenges and opportunities in
implementing the idea.

Rural Up Program will be held in Taiwan from July to August (30 days) 2019.
 Essay Title, Times New Roman, Size 16, Center
Author
Author’s affiliation, nation
Email: email address

The essay starts right here. The essay must be written in English and word processed in Microsoft Word.
The essay must be between 1500 and 5000 words in length. The essay must be based on main theme
provided (Achieving Food Security by Strengthen Rural Empowerment). The essay titles are not set.
So, the participants are freed to create their creativities. The essay should be typed in standard font
Times New Roman in font size 12, 1.5 spacing, margin top, bottom, left, right 3, 3, 3, three should be used
for ease of reading and marking, and pages should be single sided. Pages should be numbered. Submitted
essays must be entirely original work of the participants and must include references to avoid plagiarism.
The essay contains an introduction and literature review. Data experiment are not mandatory but
recommended to be written in essay body. Essay discussion is written in detail and specifically related to
the topic/theme. General discussion is not recommended. The topic/theme chosen must be simple and
beneficial. The essay must not disgrace the right of others including privacy, norm or moral rights. Essays
cannot already be published.

Tables and figures should be incorporated in the text as close to the reference as possible. Figures will be
printed in black and white and should be readily interpreted without the use of color.

Captions should be 10 points type size and center. Tables and figures should be sequentially numbered in
separate series. Captions for tables should be above the table and captions for figures should be below the
figure.
The accuracy and completeness of the references is the responsibility of the author. Citation of an author's
work in the text should follow the author-date method of citation; the surname of the author(s) and the
year of publication should appear in the text. For example, “Smith (1999) found that…”; “other
researchers (Black & Tan, 2000) …”.
References use APA style and should be listed alphabetically at the end of the paper using an unnumbered
style with a hanging indentation.
Online registration will be available until 30 January 2019. Please visit http://bit.ly/RuralUp2019
to complete your registration form, and you will receive an email confirmation within three days
from the committee. Please submit your essay to info@aseanyouthdev.org with the subject
email and file name “Name_University/Institution_ Essay Tittle” (essay format .doc/.pdf).

IMPORTANT DATES
Registration and Essay Appraisal
19 Dec – 30 January

Interview*
5 February 2019

Essay Announcement
10 February 2019

Join Rural Up Program

July – Augustus 2019

PAYMENT METHOD
All candidates should pay IDR 250.000 until 30 January 2019.

Payment can be transferred to this bank account:

Bank BRI Syariah
Account number: 1025 623 408
Bank BCA
Account number: 6825 228539
Account Name: Gema Aria

*Please scan the money transfer receipt and send via email to the organizing committee
(info@aseanyouthdev.org) within seven days after completing the program fee.
The participant will then receive a proof of registration letter within seven working days.
It may be irony when we talk about food security in the agricultural country such as ASEAN.
However, this problem is really due to global change and climate change. In Indonesia as
the biggest country in the ASEAN, the agriculture’s contribution to the country’s GDP has
fallen from 15.2 - 14.4 %, from 2003 to 2013. One of the reasons could be declining in the
number of farmers, which was 1.93 % each year, from 2010 until 2014. Meanwhile, there are
only 12 % of 35 million farmers are younger than 35 years. This fact is adding threat to food
security in ASEAN.

Food security depends on farmers’ security. Existing government program in Indonesia starts
to pay attention to farmer’s welfare. One of the strategies is by improving high return an
essential commodity such as cacao which brings principal income/livelihood. It provides the
opportunity for the farmers have multiple crops on their farms. There is an excellent
opportunity for farmers to play roles in the agriculture value chain, not only in the farming
stage but also in post-harvesting processes.

The farmers have to deal with vulnerable climate variability and increasing their adaptive
capacity. Therefore, agriculture actors have to prepare adaptation strategy: Improving
irrigation systems, practicing organic farming and implementing the forestry concept which
is supported by various stakeholders. Development of agriculture value chain can support
food security and farmers’ income security.