Gi Food and PT. Indmira Gardening Event Collaboration: “Let’s Stop Food Waste!”

Gardening with PT. Indmira returns on Saturday (3 November 2018). In this occasion, we collaborate with Gi Food to manage and treat food and kitchen wastes. This event is attended by various Yogyakarta residents, who come individually or in groups.

Participants are greeted at our headquarters in Jalan Kaliurang Km 16,3. Here, we give them a tour of our facilities, starting with the marginal-land demonstration plots. They can also see where we develop our hydroponic systems too. The last stop at our main office is the rooftop garden where they are invited to harvest the available vegetables.

The next activities take place at our Kebun Sendang (Spring Garden), which is about half a kilometer away from the headquarters. This garden is not big enough for a commercial production but it is cozy and has everything for home gardening. We therefore hold our community gardening activities here and plant as many vegetables, flowers, and trees as the place allows us.

The main attraction in this gathering is making liquid organic fertilizer from food wastes. Gi Food provides the materials that they obtain from their network. Gi Food is the first mobile platform in Indonesia for people to share surplus food with those who are in need. However, for this event, Gi Food sets aside this surplus for teaching materials. In addition to the food leftover, there is a list of ingredients for a starter consisting of: terasi (fermented fish paste), salt, coconut sugar, coconut water, rice rinsing water, water, and yeast extract. These materials are used to initiate and speed up decomposition of organic wastes.

Once all materials are inside the composter, Dwiky representing Gi Food tells a heartbreaking story about food waste. He shares the fact that wasting food has been increasing and Indonesia is one of the worst offenders. Based on Food Sustainability Index 2017 published The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), Indonesia placed second from the last among the countries evaluated in the census, only better than Saudi Arabia. Food waste should be limited, if not avoided, because it also means energy waste. The main goal of this presentation is to raise awareness among us to maximize the potential in our treatment of food.

The day is closed with enjoying a salad dish with shredded coconut dressing, and drinks of telang-mint-lemongrass tea and strawberry-squash juice.

In addition to sharing our passion in agricultural and environmental education, PT. Indmira provides the time and space for anyone or group who wants to share their knowledge in the same field. We use the “Ngebun Bareng” (Gardening Together) event for such a purpose. This time we learn about making organic fertilizer from our dinner table waste. But next time, a new knowledge!

In the meantime, let’s stop food waste!