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Tech startup Koltiva expands assistance to coffee, oil palm farmers
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Workers of state-owned plantation company PT. Perkebunan Nusantara XIII sort oil palm fresh fruit bunches during the harvest in Lorong Pinang, Paser, East Kalimantan. ( Ayu Ambong/tempo.co)
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fter assisting cocoa farmers with global price data, tracing of sales and sustainable farming practices since 2013, tech start-up Koltiva will expand its coverage this year by creating software for coffee and palm oil farmers this year.
“We are going to aim for new sectors. They are coffee and oil palm,” Koltiva CEO Ainu Rofiq told The Jakarta Post, adding that his firm would cooperate with large firms in the sectors that had already been involved in partnerships with farmers.
Established in 2013, the start-up began creating software for the CocoaTrace program, involving business-oriented foundation Swisscontact, agro giant Cargill and food maker Mondelez International to provide cocoa farmers with global price information.
(Read also: Start-ups breathe life into agriculture sector)
Koltiva also introduced an effective replanting system to increase farmers’ productivity and help them sell their products at a fair price.
“Each farmer has an ID card with a barcode, through which the buyer [Cargill] can track the sales of the farmers so the end processor [Mondelez, who buys cocoa from Cargill] knows where and how the raw materials were planted and sold,” Rofiq explained.
With the system, Koltiva has helped 82,000 cocoa farmers, mainly in Southeast Sulawesi and aims to reach 150,000 cocoa farmers by 2020. Each farmer owns a farm a maximum of 2.5 hectares in size. (bbn)
