Universitas Gadjah Mada
Faculty of Economics and Business

FEB UGM students promoted local communities in exploiting silkworms in Desa Karang Tengah, Bantul, Yogyakarta. Silkworm is one of the excellent resources owned by Karang Tengah village. A large number of potential silkworms, which include golden silkworm and brown silkworm, can be produced from cashew gardens in the region.

"In total, the communities can harvest up to 10 kg of silkworm cocoons from both golden and brown type of silkworms," said Putri Hayuning Tyas, as one of the team member of UGM community service in Karang Tengah village.

The community service activities in Karang Tengah village was conducted by PKM UGM team which incorperated of Putri Hayuning Tyas (Accounting, 2016), Melynda Rukmmana Devie (Management, 2016), Thariq Surya Gumelar (Accounting, 2016) and Wafa Rizki (Accounting, 2016). Additionally, the team was also assisted by four volunteers, namely Anisabila Galuh (Accounting, 2017), Nadhifa Aisha (Accounting, 2017), Mutiara Amalia (Accounting, 2017) and Wildan Sulchan (Accounting, 2017), they also contribute in assisting local communities to process the silkworm products.

The underlying motivation background from conducting the team project is originated from the team concern regarding the large potential benefit that can be generated from silkworm cocoons which have not optimally managed by the local citizens yet.

Initially, the local group of farmers had managed to process the silkworm cocoons into sheet silkworm cocoons. However, due to lack of knowledge and advanced in technology, the development of the process itself have been decreasing over time.

"During the last four months, we conducted regular training for the community with the scope of discussion ranging from production, finance, and marketing of products," she explained.

Putri also mentioned that the team gave education to local communities in Karang Tengah village about how to process the silkworm cocoon into other variety of ornaments and souvenirs. At this point of time, as one of the visible progress from the local communities, there is addition in the type of finish products that they are capable to manufacture which include turning the silkworm product into yarn and woven fabric.

"Our team also educate the local citizen about marketing, especially about how to promote their products through both online and offline approaches," she said.

Source: Thariq Surya Gumelar