26 September 2024
Syafrijal S.Kom
MEDAN - Lecturers from the Faculty of Agriculture (FP) of Universitas Sumatera Utara (USU) conducted community service (PKM) at the Al Hidayah Islamic Boarding School in Hamlet IV, Sei Mencirim Village, Kutalimbaru District, Deliserdang.
The activity entitled "Business Development of Al Hidayah Islamic Boarding School Through Sugar Palm Processing" was funded by the Directorate of Research, Technology and Community Service (DRTPM) of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia through the Community Partnership Program (PkM) scheme in 2024.
This activity was chaired by Prof. Dr. Ir. Elisa Julianti, M.Si from the FP Food Technology Study Program, together with her team consisting of Dr. Ir. T.Irmansyah, MP., from the Agrotechnology Study Program, and R.B. Moh.Ibrahim Fatoni, S.Pi., M.P. from the Agribusiness Study Program. This activity involved three students from the Food Technology Study Program.
The partner in the activity is the Al Hidayah Islamic Boarding School led by Ustadz Khairul Ghazali who is engaged in education, social and da'wah, in accordance with the Decree of the Minister of Law and Human Rights: AHU-0042608.AH.01.04.Year 2016.
The Al Hidayah Islamic Boarding School provides free education for all students but until now the Al Hidayah Foundation has only received financial assistance from the government in the form of BOS (School Operational Costs) funds such as textbook assistance.
Therefore, the Al Hidayah Foundation is developing a business to be able to finance all activities at the Islamic boarding school including paying teacher salaries, student food costs, and other school operational costs.
The existing land is used by the foundation to plant sugar palm and fruit plants, especially barangan bananas and durian by implementing an integrated organic farming system, by raising goats and also cultivating freshwater fish.
The Al Hidayah Foundation has a mission to develop the sugar palm plant business as an effort to be able to provide free education for all students at the Al Hidayah Islamic boarding school.
The number of sugar palm plants currently in the Al Hidayah Islamic boarding school environment is 1100 trees, but the number of productive plants is still 30 trees, while the rest cannot be harvested. Every day only 10 trees are harvested for sap with a total sap production of 100 L per day.
Palm sugar processing that does not meet the standards of production space for food processing.
The sap processing process still uses very simple equipment, namely only using a cooking stove with fuel in the form of wood and a frying pan to cook the sap.
The wood used as fuel is wood that comes from trees around the Islamic boarding school area.
Although in terms of financing it is cheaper, because the wood is not purchased, but from an environmental perspective, the use of firewood is very bad because it can cause air pollution.
In addition, processed sap products such as molded palm sugar and ant sugar that are produced also have poor quality, including dirty products, high water content, dark color and not uniform.
Therefore, said Prof. Dr. Ir. Elisa Julianti, M.Si, the USU FP PKM team provided assistance for the development of aren processing at the Al Hidayah Islamic Boarding School.
The activity began with the provision of appropriate technology tools in the form of an aren sugar mixer machine, an ant sugar drying oven, ant sugar flour and sifter, which was continued with training on the use of the provided sap processing tools.
This activity also included training and assistance on sugar production technology to produce aren sugar, ant sugar, and liquid sugar with quality according to SNI standards, training on aren plant nurseries and other fruit plants, training on creating websites for product promotion and marketing.
Students involved in this activity also helped in the preparation of CPPB (Good Food Production Methods) documents for aren sugar, ant sugar, and liquid sugar products, assistance for product legalization (PIRT and Halal permits) and product packaging design and labels.
Ustadz Khairul Ghazali as the head of the Al Hidayah Islamic Boarding School in his presentation expressed his gratitude to the Faculty of Agriculture of Universitas Sumatera Utara for the knowledge provided and the grant of appropriate technology tools, which are expected to increase productivity and income from the palm sap processing business at the Al Hidayah Islamic Boarding School.
