The agritech landscape in Southeast Asia holds excellent promise as stakeholders combine agriculture and technology to address the region’s food insecurity challenges. According to the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2022 report by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and other partners, an estimated 6.3% of residents were at risk of going hungry or running out of food in 2021.
Indonesia is one of the countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) trying to secure food sources for its 278 million citizens. Agritech startups can leverage technology to boost productivity, improve yields, track plant growth, and offer a platform for payments and produce trading.
President Joko Widodo launched the Food Estate Programme, managed by the Ministry of Defence, to ensure the country’s food security by growing crops like rice on vast agricultural land. The program’s planned budget is over IDR 114 trillion.
Here’s a closer look at some forerunners in Indonesia’s agritech startup ecosystem:
DokterFresh
Food solution DokterFresh aims to give families access to organic, clean, and fresh products. Researcher and Web Developer Rasyid Karomi founded the company, and it provides vegetables and frozen food at home or when the customer is on the move.
Moreover, it offers a free app, focuses on sustainable infrastructure, and is establishing its business in multiple regions.
AgriAku
Tech-based company AgriAku acts as a distribution service for farmers and other stakeholders through its app. It was founded in 2021 by Danny Handoko and Irvan Kolonas. It offers a marketplace for people to buy and sell fertilisers, seeds, chemicals, business software, and more. It uses sustainable, inclusive, and profitable models to help its partners.
Thus far, AgriAku has raised USD 46 million in four funding rounds from 16 investors. These include Argor Capital, Gentree Fund, Indogen Capital, TNB Aura, Innoven Capital, MDI Ventures, and Alpha JWC Ventures. It plans to use the money it has made to increase its team, provide better products, enable customers and merchants to transact seamlessly, and enhance its market penetration.
Farmland Rover
Agritech company Farmland Rover, based in Medan, was founded in 2023. It offers a semi-autonomous and autonomous vehicle that can perform agricultural tasks like spraying pesticides as it moves about on the farmland. The car uses solar power, making it an eco-friendly solution for farming.
Furthermore, Farmland Rover uses ArduPilot software, an open-source program that supports various vehicle types, such as helicopters, to operate on autopilot.
CeriTech Indonesia
Aldi Raharja founded CeriTech Indonesia in 2019 to use the Internet of Things (IoT) to manage coffee harvesting activities. The quality of coffee beans in the country was very inconsistent due to a lack of an established standard, so Aldi and his friends developed a cloud-based system to track production. The system controls the fermentation and drying process, vital for coffee making, and monitors everything in real-time.
According to Alibaba Cloud, CeriTech Indonesia plans to create a Roaster solution to provide quality control for roasters. Secondly, the company plans to launch an eCommerce platform where farmers can sell their produce and give 10% to the firm. The startup will guarantee the quality of the coffee beans to its customers.
Elevarm
Lintang Kusuma Pratiwi founded Elevarm in 2022 to combine agriculture and technology, thereby boosting productivity in the agri ecosystem. It empowers farmers through innovation, enabling them to enrich their soils, get higher yields, and grow sustainably. Furthermore, the app democratises access to financial solutions to pay for farming products.
Elevarm has had two funding rounds, the most recent being a non-equity assistance round. Its investors include Endeavor Indonesia, Insignia Ventures Partners, 500 Global, Gibran Huzaifah, and more. The company has a farming productivity platform for effective land monitoring and project management, which helps farmers with scalability. Additionally, Elevarm has an agriculture trading area where businesses can benefit from reliable supply networks in the ecosystem.
Towards food security with agritech in Indonesia
Agritech startups in Southeast Asia have many advantages that can help Indonesians grow their foods effectively, at lower costs, and sustainably. Yet, the country faces challenges such as supply chain fragility, inadequate funding, and underdeveloped infrastructure in rural areas.
Moreover, the cost of adopting technology is high, and more training on digitisation and modern farming is needed.
There is also the issue of sustainability in the agritech landscape due to harmful fertilisers damaging the soil and seeping into water basins, making them unsafe for humans.
Nevertheless, the hope is that every agritech startup in Indonesia can make a difference by innovating novel solutions to guarantee the country can grow healthy crops using sustainable fuel sources like solar power. Furthermore, they can continue improving technology, such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI), as they move towards processing data collected by machine sensors.