Applying technology in the sector should take into account the large share of smallholder farmers in Indonesia, their farming system and their institutional or group structures at the local levels, said Scott Waldron from the University of Queensland’s School of Agriculture and Food Sciences in Australia.

“The technologies that are introduced into that landscape firstly have to be suited and adapted for smallholders so they will be appropriate in that environment,” Waldron said in a virtual discussion held by the Australia-Indonesia Centre on Wednesday.

Indonesia is seeing a growing trend in the involvement of tech-based start-ups in the agriculture and fisheries sectors aiming to improve production as well as farmers’ and fisherfolks’ welfare.

Fishery start-up Aruna, for instance, recently secured US$5.5 million in fresh funds from a recent funding round to expand its community of fishers and help improve productivity, product quality and overall standards. The aquaculture platform currently works with thousands of fishers in 31 coastal areas across Indonesia.

Agriculture start-up Tanihub, which also provides peer-to-peer lending for farmers through TaniFund, secured investments worth $17 million in April, prompting the company to expand outside of Java and extend its services to 100,000 farmers by 2021.

Statistics Indonesia (BPS) data shows that the agricultural industry, the second-largest contributor to the country’s economy, grew 2.19 percent year-on-year (yoy) in the second quarter as the largest, the manufacturing industry, shrank 6.19 percent and the whole economy contracted 5.32 percent.

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