This community service activity is one of the concrete forms of collaboration between academics and the community to advance the local agricultural sector in North Sumatra.

Lecturers of the Faculty of Agriculture, Universitas Sumatera Utara (FP USU) held a community service activity entitled “Pengembangan Kapasitas Produksi Jamur Tiram, Diversifikasi, Serta Manajemen Strategi Pemasaran Produk Olahan Jamur Tiram,” which took place at Saddam Mushroom House, Marelan neighborhood 14, Rengas Pulau Village, Medan Marelan District, Medan City, North Sumatra.

During the activity, TPM USU consisting of Prof. Dr. Ir Yaya Hasanah, M.Si, Nursa'adah, S.ST, M.Agr, Dian Pebriyani, S.P, M.P, and assisted by 5 Food Science and Technology students and 2 Agrotechnology students, in collaboration with the Saddam Mushroom House farmer group provided training to the community to make preparations from oyster mushrooms, such as oyster mushroom dumplings and oyster mushroom nuggets. TPM USU also provided direction on how to market the community's processed products to the outside world through e-commerce and directly.

“We are here to help you produce products that make customers more interested in the products you create. For example, marketing products online and offline,” said Yaya Hasanah in her presentation at the training session on Saturday (14/9/2024).

Dian Pebriyani as the accompanying lecturer also added about the importance of choosing the right color for the packaging or products that we sell. “For example, the use of red and yellow colors is easy to attract the attention of the general public,” said Dian.

“We don't need to always post the products we sell. We can also create content related to the products we sell so that customers will be more interested,” added Nursa'adah.

After this training, it is hoped that people in the Medan Marelan area, especially Rengas Pulau Village, will be more motivated to process oyster mushrooms that have only been marketed in raw form.

Saddam as the owner of the Saddam Mushroom House farmer group, expressed his gratitude to TPM USU for providing very useful briefings and training, as well as a new steamer that will be very useful in the future.

“Hopefully, this knowledge can improve our quality, starting from the production of mushroom seeds to their processing, which will benefit more people,” said Saddam.

After the training, TPM USU also handed over processed oyster mushroom products to the community such as oyster mushroom dumplings and oyster mushroom nuggets, as well as a number of tools that are useful in oyster mushroom farming, such as a steamer for sterilizing oyster mushroom baglogs, a meat grinder, a light fire extinguisher (APAR) and also heat-resistant gloves.

“We hope that the handover of this tool can help the community in Rengas Pulau Village cultivate oyster mushrooms and produce processed oyster mushroom products that are known to the wider community,” said Yaya Hasanah.

This community service activity is a concrete form of collaboration between academics and the community to advance the local agricultural sector in North Sumatra. (RJ)