ARIA Agritech Startup Ambition to Create a New Generation of Farmers in Indonesia

One of the obstacles that are currently still a challenge for agriculture is the lack of interest of young farmers to enter the agricultural sector. The large amount of land that has to be cultivated using old methods and methods also makes it difficult for most farmers to optimize their performance.

Not to mention if it turns out that there is a pest attack that must be anticipated quickly, it usually requires a large number of workers to carry out the process. As a result, many farmers experienced crop failures and large losses because it was too late to overcome them.

Seeing the problem, ARIA which is startup agritech comes with solutions to increase productivity efficiency through the use of drones and IoT, while providing prevention and predictive agriculture solutions to farmers and large-scale plantations. In addition, the motivation for developing this product is to help farmers and plantation owners get good agricultural products, while at the same time attracting more young farmers to enter the agricultural sector.

To DailySocial.id, Co-Founder & CEO AIR William Sjaichudin revealed, starting with drone technology, they wanted to become a platform agritech which can help farmers get quality agricultural products with the right planting process, while minimizing the use of labor in the field.

"Most currently platforms agritech in Indonesia is more focused on the supply chain. However, many of them also complained about the low quality of farmers' harvests. With the technology and services we have, we want to overcome these problems and focus on quality control, said William.

Focus on the B2B segment

Aria was co-founded by Arden Lim (CPO) and Yosa Rosario (COO). Currently there are two business verticals that are targeted by ARIA, namely B2B companies such as plantations and forestry. Especially for B2B clients, ARIA provides SaaS technology that helps them to carry out the planting process using directly connected data, so they can carry out accurate spraying activities.

Meanwhile, for both individual farmers and farmers who have plantations, the hope is that they can apply best practice which has been applied to large companies such as Sampoerna, Sahabat Agro Group, Sinarmas, Triputra Group, and others who are current clients of ARIA to them.

"Our target this year is to be able to serve 2 to 60 percent of B70B clients and 30 percent to farmers. We hope that through programs owned by local governments and available vacant land, we can help ARIA," said William.

Departing from technology, ARIA is quite confident that it can create jobs that attract the attention of prospective new farmers in Indonesia. So that the regeneration of farmers can run well, replacing the farmers who are currently fewer in number and most of them have entered old age.

Judging from the responses of farmers in various regions who welcome mapping technology and drone spray what they have, ARIA sees the potential to produce new young farmers and drone pilots in the future.

"For the drone pilots themselves, we currently have around 16 people and the target can increase to 40 more by the end of the month. Our drone pilots come from each region, adjusting the demand from the units ordered," said William

The business model implemented by ARIA is as follows: service company. Because buying and selling drones is difficult, their way of running a business is to bring drones at a low cost, namely service per hectare. Thus it can be more affordable for farmers. To provide integrated services, ARIA also collaborates with Bayer in the provision of chemicals for agriculture.

"In the future, we want to be able to make our own drones. What distinguishes us from other platforms is a direct approach by providing solutions end-to-end and platform hardware for farmers," William said.

Early stage fundraising plan

Currently, ARIA has received funding for the pre-seed stage which was organized and led by GK-Plug and Play Indonesia, East Ventures and market leaders in agriculture and logistics such as Triputra Group, Waresix, and Sahabat Group who participated in this series.

ARIA will use this funding to develop its infrastructure network and quickly establish distribution points in 17 branches spread across Indonesia to reach 40 billion hectares of ARIA's potential market. This development was also accompanied by the purchase of a large fleet of drones, as well as the development of a key IoT asset in the form of tracking technology to provide value and impact of change for ARIA customers.

“It is very important for ARIA to deal with the regeneration of young Indonesian farmers, who are constrained by limited land and suffering from low-income professions across Indonesia. Farmers in Indonesia are slowly dying. ARIA's vision is to grow a new generation of young millennial farmers who are tech-savvy and able to compete and develop at the global level,” said William.

To get a strategic partner who can help ARIA open up more opportunities, in the near future ARIA will also complete a seed fundraising stage. Still in the process of finalizing if according to the plan, ARIA will get the fresh funds at the end of March.

"The biggest advantage in Indonesia as an agriculture country is being a farmer. However, because currently we are still using the old methods and methods, the opportunities and benefits that can be obtained by farmers are small. Through ARIA we want to make the farming profession more profitable. profitable, said William.