Pemberdayaan Petani Kakao Giripurwo Melalui Teknologi Tepat Guna Pengolahan Limbah Kulit Kakao

Abstract

The Sido Dadi Farmer Group in Giripurwo Village, Girimulyo District, Kulon Progo Regency generates a large amount of cocoa pod husk waste that has merely been piled around the plantations, while farming still relies on chemical fertilizers and the group has no processed products, product identity, business legality, or marketing channels. This community service program aimed to empower the farmer group through the application of appropriate technology for processing cocoa pod husk waste into compost, liquid organic fertilizer (LOF), and bioherbicide with economic value. A participatory empowerment approach was implemented in three stages, namely awareness, capacity building, and empowerment, comprising focus group discussions, training on good agricultural practices for cocoa, production training and practice, provision of production equipment, packaging design, assistance in obtaining a Business Identification Number (NIB), development of a marketing website, and marketing strategy training. Evaluation was carried out through laboratory testing of product quality and a Likert-scale empowerment questionnaire administered to 25 group members. The results show that the partner is able to produce three products from cocoa pod husk; the compost contains 25.04–27.07% organic carbon with a C/N ratio of 14.07–16.50. The group now holds an NIB under the Indonesian Standard Industrial Classification code 20124, packaging designs for three products, and the biokao.id website as a promotional medium. The proportion of members in the empowered and highly empowered categories reached 87%, whereas initially 52% of members were in the not yet empowered and less empowered categories. The program demonstrates that appropriate technology based on local waste, combined with institutional and marketing strengthening, can foster sustainable farmer group independence.