Search

Preparing children to become the Rabbani, or godly, generation is the parents' choice when educating their children. In Indonesia, children are seen as an investment in the nation, state and religion as they will become the generation to change civilisation for the better. Through gardening education in nursery school, it is hoped that children's monotheism and cognitive, psychomotor and affective development will be achieved. This article offers a service-learning program, developed with the aid of agricultural science and early childhood university education, and partnered with a large social charity, Muhammadiyah. Methods used in this program are group discussion forums, gardening education for class teachers and class action by students in the class. The program involves 60 students aged six at a nursery school, Aisyiyah Bustanul Athfal, in East Java Province, Indonesia. This program is important as it involves measurable assessment of the educational model, learning tool requirements, methods of delivery and evaluation of activities. The program and results shared here demonstrate that gardening education can be accomplished at the nursery school level. Gardening tools are needed, but can be modified to suit this age group. Gardening education for these young children is conducted in accordance with pre-prepared lesson plans. Multilevel learning methods, ranging from reading books, telling stories and watching documentaries to practising and reflecting on gardening activities, are part of the success of this type of gardening education. School support for the implementation of this program markedly determined its success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Complex rice systems (CRS) are polycultures in which rice is grown together with one or more plant or animal species using combined methods of practices from indigenous knowledge and modern science in augmenting ecological processes to foster ecosystem services in rice agroecosystems. However, their implementation faces challenges due to farmers' knowledge gaps, high capital outlay and labour shortages. This study aims to link types of rice farming and farmer perceptions to facilitate recommendations to scale up CRS. We constructed a farm typology based on a survey of 111 farm households and aggregated cognitive maps (ACMs) based on fuzzy cognitive maps developed in focus group discussions in Malang and Lamongan, East Java Province, Indonesia. The farm typology classified farm households into three types: (a) small farms with high inputs of agrochemicals (SH, n = 29) which were all identified in Malang; (b) medium-size farms with high input intensity of agrochemicals (MH, n = 43), distributed across Malang and Lamongan; and (c) medium-size farms with low inputs of agrochemicals (ML, n = 39), all detected in Lamongan. ACMs revealed the differences in farmer group's perceptions on farm input-output relations, agroecosystems processes and CRS component interactions. SH and MH farmers prioritised economic benefits over ecosystem services and crop-livestock components. SH farmers were locked into high-input and high-output systems, while MH farmers failed to obtain high output despite high input use. Intervention schemes could be developed such as thorough training on economics for SH farmers and efficient use and on-farm production of fertilisers for MH farmers. Meanwhile, with the majority of ML farmers having adopted CRS, their priorities were more evenly distributed across all components, implying their more holistic understanding of the interacted components. However, technical assistance on agronomic, post-harvest management and marketing were still considered to be needed to ensure a long-term sustainability of CRS practices by ML farmers. Combining farm typology and fuzzy cognitive mapping could facilitate a comprehensive understanding of farming system types, their characteristics and farmer perceptions as a key to formulate appropriate interventions for a specific farm type. Therefore, these methodological approaches could provide guidance to accelerate transitions toward complex agroecosystems. [Display omitted] • Farmers' knowledge gaps are the main challenge in complex rice systems (CRS) implementations. • Farm typology classified rice farming systems and aggregated cognitive maps captured farmer group perceptions. • The linkage between rice farming types and their farmer's perceptions were used to assess intervention schemes for CRS implementations. • Intervention schemes recommended different trainings and support based on the specific farm type. • These methodological approaches provide transition guidance toward complex agroecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]