Pondok Pesantren Sunan Kalijogo Sumberlawang owns approximately 0.5 hectares of unused land that has not been optimally utilized, while 100 students require strengthened agricultural and entrepreneurial skills. This program offers novelty by integrating the utilization of the pesantren’s land assets, California papaya cultivation, and the development of students’ entrepreneurial capacity within a community-based empowerment model. The program employed an Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) approach through the stages of observation, discovery, and execution, involving students as active participants in asset identification, program planning, implementation, and evaluation. Knowledge and skills were evaluated using a Likert scale through pre-test and post-test assessments. A total of 25 students planted 250 California papaya seedlings on 0.3 hectares of land. The average knowledge score increased from 2.58 to 3.46, while the skills score increased from 2.35 to 3.52. The program also encouraged a shift in students’ perspectives toward viewing unused land as an economic asset and strengthened their entrepreneurial motivation based on local potential. Theoretically, these findings reinforce the application of ABCD in the pesantren context by demonstrating that the integration of physical assets and human resource capacity can provide a foundation for student-based agribusiness empowerment. The program successfully optimized the pesantren’s land assets and enhanced students’ capacities in horticultural cultivation and entrepreneurship. Its sustainability implications include integrating garden management into pesantren activities, developing derivative products, and expanding marketing networks so that the empowerment model can evolve into a sustainable pesantren-based business unit
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