COMMUNITY EMPOWERMENT IN THE MANUFACTURING OF CORN PROCESSED FOOD TOWARDS ECONOMIC INDEPENDENCE IN SAWAKONG VILLAGE, SULAWESI

Abstract

Sawakong Village is one of the villages in South Galesong District, Takalar Regency,
South Sulawesi which has six hamlets namely Sawakong Towa Hamlet, Sawakong Lolo
Hamlet, Dengilau Hamlet, Talaka Labbua Hamlet, Kasuarrang Hamlet, and
Bontomattiro Hamlet. From the community's economic condition, the main source of
livelihood for the population is farming, and the largest agricultural products are rice and
corn with three seasons a year relying on irrigation from the bili-bili and bissua
watersheds. However, the obstacle for farmers is that when the harvest is abundant they
have difficulty selling and cannot yet process agricultural products into processed food
products, because so far agricultural products are only consumed as staple foods and are
also sold in raw form. One of the abundant agricultural products is corn, which has a high
economic value after the rice has the potential to become a productive economic source of
processed food, but the community does not yet have the skills to process it into processed
food products. The solution offered by the group 90 KKN-MAs team together with the
Sawakong village government is to provide socialization of food processing and training for
KRUJASA (corn crackers) KRUJASA (sawakong corn crackers) through the manufacture
and marketing of sawakong corn crackers. The result of this activity is that the Sawakong
village community has one superior product of processed food made from corn, namely
Sawakong corn crackers as a form of innovation for processed agricultural products which
are expected to be a new effort for the community to increase independence and economic
prosperity while introducing the potential that exists in Sawakong Village.