Agriaku's "Hyperlocal" Opportunities and Strategies to Handle Upstream Agrarian Issues

Recently, efforts to democratize the agricultural industry have accelerated through the presence of various startups agritech. They are there trying to solve the upstream and downstream parts, looking for trouble spots that have plagued farmers with existing capabilities. Agriaku also participated by entering the pre-harvest segment as its initial phase.

Agriaku Co-founder and CEO Danny Handoko shared his views and hopes in the industry in this #TuesdayStartup session. my farm present as a solution for Agriaku partners (trader and farm shop owners) to get saprotan (a means of agricultural production) at an affordable price. To find out more, here's a summary:

Solve issues upstream

Danny explained that the supply chain system in the agricultural industry consists of pre-harvest, production, post-harvest, and processing, until it reaches consumers. Solutions provided by players agritech So far, there are various, there are those that focus on providing solutions E-commerce for consumers, financially to help farmers buy fertilizer, and so on. However, upstream solutions, precisely in pre-harvest, have not been widely looked at.

As for the solution in the pre-harvest, how can agricultural goods from the principal have a transparent supply chain and be evenly distributed throughout the harvest? whole farm shop existing in Indonesia. The farmer's shop itself is the closest element that exists in farmers that connects farmers with first-level producers or distributors. The better the supply chain for distribution of goods, the better it is for farmers to get a complete catalog of agricultural products at much more affordable prices.

"This farmer's shop has been in Indonesia for a long time, there are around 200 thousand shops throughout Indonesia. Because it has been a long time, trust has been built with the farmers,” said Danny.

With this background, Agriaku provides a platform E-commerce which provides the most complete saprotan compared to ordinary farmer shops, ranging from seeds, medicines and nutrients, fertilizers and also agricultural tools. With the AgriAKU recording and cash register system, agents can also make accurate digital records so that they can simplify their work and accelerate business development.

It is claimed that currently Agriaku has attracted tens of thousands of farmer shops to use the Agriaku application by using the Agriaku application average revenue per user through the tens of millions. Its users are spread across Java, Sumatra, and several points in Sulawesi. Achievements will continue to be improved in order to realize Agriaku's ambition to become a dominant player in this segment.

Localized approach

One of the interesting points conveyed by Danny is that in the agri industry, it is not possible to immediately take global solutions that are directly implemented in Indonesia. Globally, it is already familiar with mechanization by using drones to increase the operational precision of farmers.

However, this solution is not 100% and cannot be implemented in Indonesia because the farmers here on average have about two to three hectares of land. Whereas in developed countries, one farmer can manage thousands of hectares of land. To bring global solutions to Indonesia, the implementation must be hyperlocal.

Moreover, the internet connection infrastructure here is still a lot blind spots so that the entire business process cannot be forced completely online. As a result, startup founders need to balance online and offline operations, in order to remain efficient.

“This is an interesting challenge for techplayer, in developed countries with good internet penetration, it is definitely easier to adopt when new solutions are introduced. But in Indonesia, this limitation is a challenge in itself.”

For Agriaku, to be hyperlocal the approach in the field has a crucial role. The team needs to introduce the app to the farmer shop owners to attract trust and willingness to use. The function of the application not only makes it easier for them to get the best agricultural products, it also increases their income coffers because they can get cheaper prices.