Agri-tech start-ups reinventing farms to boost Indonesia’s agriculture sector | CPT PPP Coverage

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Aquaculture start-up Jala is also on a mission to increase the efficiency of the shrimp farmers it works with. The company, which launched its services in 2019, uses technology to monitor environmental conditions and feeding data, which farmers can then adjust to maximise their yield.

Its chief executive, Ms Liris Maduningtyas, 31, told ST that in the four years since the launch, more than 16,000 farmers have used Jala’s monitoring platform. The firm currently takes care of the environmental conditions for about 12,000 tonnes of shrimp.

“For 20 years, we realised we had not seen any improvement in terms of technology in shrimp farming, while in all other industries there were technological advancements,” she said.

“So we spent years researching and doing product development to solve this.”

Youths staying away

The big challenge lies in getting young people interested in the agriculture, forestry and fishery sectors.

Only 23 per cent of Indonesia’s 14.2 million people aged between 15 and 24 worked in these sectors in 2019, based on the most recent available data from the National Labour Force Survey.

Although the government will make sure there is enough food produced locally and the farming profession will not disappear, young people are still staying away, noted Dr Maria Monica Wihardja, a visiting fellow from the Indonesia studies programme at the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute.

“It could be a very attractive sector, especially since the sector has a high national importance. However, there are many factors that could make the sector look unattractive,” she said.

Such factors include an unsupportive financial ecosystem, and the impression that it is a risky business with relatively little returns.

“The agriculture sector is a more regulated market compared with other economic sectors because food security is a national security. A more regulated market, where international trade, market prices and input prices are regulated, may give less incentive for farmers to innovate and the sector becomes less dynamic and hence, unattractive for young people,” she said.

Mr Andrew Soeherman, the 36-year-old chief executive of digital farming solutions provider Eratani, said that the idea of working in the business of growing food might not seem popular with young people due to the conditions that they might have to face, like working outdoors in the sun.

But Mr Soeherman, whose firm regularly meets the farmers it works with, believes that the work is worth it.

Started in 2021, the company now works with more than 10,000 rice farmers to increase their crop yield by providing them with a set of sensors to monitor their productivity as well as solutions to better finance their business and distribute their product.

“People are happier to work in cafes or offices, sure. But when you already decided to serve this mission and go after its opportunities, what feels hard initially will not feel hard once it pays off,” he said.

When it comes to technological solutions in agriculture, Dr Wihardja said that the key is to downscale and make it easy for farmers to use them, something which the entrepreneurs agree with.

All the companies ST spoke to said that they still go on the ground regularly to educate their partners.

“Understanding the farmers’ pain points and finding out the real problems is key. You need to talk to the farmers and go to the real farms, not just once or twice but many times. The more you understand your industry and solve the problems, the more you will draw people to it,” said Ms Maduningtyas.

Some might see this as hard work, but these entrepreneurs say that their efforts pay off when they see the farmers improving their lives and becoming even more productive with their farms.

“How are we going to feed seven, eight billion people in the world if we don’t improve our technology, improve our chicken production, our rice production?,” said Mr Arief.

“And going to the ground, meeting all these people, that’s when you get to feel the sense of it… we’re really hoping to make a change in the lives of these people, and the food we put on our table.”