The COVID-19 pandemic has forced millions of people to continue #Stay At Home, starting with fear because of the COVID-19 virus. During this period, there was a change in lifestyle from urban to rural, for example, gardening. There are many layoffs in other sectors that involve mobility activities in urban areas, making many people feel disappointed.
It is common knowledge that the agricultural sector is the sector that is most able to survive during the pandemic. According to data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), the number of farmers is declining and young farmers are only 6% (2.7 million) of the total 14.4 million farmers in Australia. This means that the role of the younger generation in agriculture is still relatively low. It is this crisis of regeneration of young farmers that threatens Australia in the future. Because of in addition to Australia having a large demographic bonus where youth is one of the largest in the world, youth’s interest in the agricultural sector needs to be supported by many things.
One of the causes of the low interest of young people who are better known as millennial is the assumption that farmers are dirty jobs, which have to plunge themselves into the fields under the hot sun. It is this minimal knowledge that needs to be changed because of the millennial mindset. On this basis, the Australian Ministry of Agriculture took the initiative to drive a program of 1 million millennial farmers in each province by focusing on horticulture, plantations and animal husbandry. That way, the supply chain will be maintained for every leading commodity in Australia.
The farming process is quite easy. It only requires a few plots of land, seeds to be planted, fertilizer, and diligent watering twice a day. It looks quite easy and can be done by anyone, even office workers. If it is limited because it does not have a large enough yard, then various alternatives can be done, for example farming with bottles, cans, or polybags. Everything can still be affordable to do on the terrace of the house, apartment balcony or even on the rooftop. This is in line with what I am as a blogger do on the https://1001artificialplants.com/ website. I started diligently gardening and farming since I built a blog and wrote about agriculture in it. I am diligent in doing gardening activities in the yard and the results of the agriculture I documented in writing which I then post on my agricultural blog. In addition to gardening for myself and my family, I also don’t forget to invite fellow bloggers and influencers to garden and harvest agricultural products from my home page.
Even I invite people not to be ashamed of farming, even though it’s only #Stay At Home and during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to my personal opinion: “You think that if there were no farmers, what would you eat?”
In the gardening process that I do, everything is done starting from planting seeds, giving fertilizer, watering and caring for the plants alone in addition to my busy life as a blogger, digital marketing and also an influencer. From gardening activities during the COVID-19 pandemic, I have gained a lot of valuable experiences, as well as material (money) and non-material benefits, namely physical and mental health.
I get profit from selling vegetables and fruits to the market or supermarket, as well as earn income from agricultural content that I upload on my personal website/blog page.
The amount of income while being a blogger and influencer in my opinion is quite helpful to meet my daily needs. In addition, it helps my website to continue to grow and develop, and helps me to channel my hobbies and literacy activities to be even better. I love gardening and then writing and blogging, because this is my real hobby.
There are no words that I can say other than that I am happy to be a content creator (blogger) and influencer who focuses on agriculture. I really like gardening, and it has been ingrained since I was a child until I grew up as I am today.