Experience Sharing from KAPEX Program

Eka Rahaya

2016 KAPEX Indonesian Trainee

Thanks to Korea Rural Economic Institute(KREI) that have given me a chance to join in KAPEX Program at 2016. Participating in the KAPEX Program was an interesting experience which provide benefits for enhancing my knowledge and capacity as a researcher. Recently, I am working at Indonesian Center of Agricultural Postharvest Research and Development (ICAPHP), Ministry of Agriculture, Republic of Indonesia. I am very proud to be a part of this program. During the program, I had the chance to interact to Korean people and learn about their habit and culture. The Buddy Program, one of my favorite section of the program, was helpful for me to understand more about it. I also met and interacted with other foreigners, such as Mongolians, Mozambicans, and people from other countries that had participated in the KAPEX Workshop. It made us possible to mingle amongst each other and exchange information about our country. It was such an amazing experience for me!

From the Korean experts, I learned about how Korean Government developed and implemented the policies related to farm management, rural development, development of agricultural and livestock industry, and agricultural technology and information through classical or on-site lectures and discussions. Related field trips and experience programs also held to give more understanding to the participants. In addition, each participant also had the chance to conduct a research based on their interest and present the result in the mid-term and final-term of the program. I were interesting to observe about agricultural postharvest industry, especially on rice processing industry. In this research, I conducted comparative analysis study about Korean and Indonesian policy on the rice processing industry and its management system. Why was it interesting? Rice is one of staple foods of the most Indonesian people, but there are some problems on rice product, both in quality and quantity. As a part of supply chain of rice product, improving rice processing industry become an urgent issue in order to ensure availability and adequacy of good quality of rice product. I expected the result study would provide important information which were possible to use as considerations to improve and enhance productivity of rice processing industry in Indonesia.

After finishing the KAPEX Program, I participated in the researcher team of rice product from ICAPHP that was continued to perform research about improving rice processing industry. It was sustainable program of Ministry of Agriculture, Republic of Indonesia that had started since several years ago in order to maintain food security. In 2015, our institution re-built pilot plant of rice processing industry in order to support our study to obtain effective rice processing technology. In this site-plant, we conducted some experiments to produce high quality of rice in the minimum production cost. Besides to be a member of rice product researcher team, I also involved in management team of rice quality testing laboratory that nowadays in process to be certification laboratory of rice quality at national scale. Therefore participating in this such program is useful to increase my competency as a researcher.