Indonesian Farmers Are Ready To Go Digital

8villages
8villages
Jul 20, 2017 · 5 min read

The world has changed since the digital invasion. Everything, literally everything can relate to the digital world. You wake up checking your phone. You spend your day with your phone in your hand, or computer on your face. And setting the alarm in your phone is the last thing you do before you sleep at night. Can you relate?

It is not entirely a bad thing. Using technology in a good purpose can even maximize our productivity. And hell, that’s why they invented in the first place; to help human with their work.

But there are some minor communities who don’t experience this advanced world like we do. These communities refer to villagers. They, who mostly are farmers, do not particularly luxuriate the Internet.

Why? Mostly because the activities in rural community do not necessarily need the Internet. Their lives are pretty attached to traditions. And they don’t really need much in their lives. Most of the times they spend with their family, working, playing chess or cards in a coffee place or other social activities.

Another reason is not that because they don’t have the financial ability to buy any device, they do. What they don’t have is the proper knowledge to use it right.

But that is beginning to change. There are a lot of start-up companies who dedicate their work to help these communities fancy the digital world.

The Lost Jargon

“Negara Agraris” (Agricultural Country) is one of the best jargons Indonesia had back in the day. The Netherlands Colonialist first came to Indonesia for agricultural reasons and ended up sitting on the country for 3,5 centuries.

The jargon became more popular when President Soeharto launched the self-sufficiency program in the 1980s. He turned Indonesia from the most rice importing country in the world to the most rice exporting country in the world.

This achievement led Soeharto to throw a speech in the 23rd Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Conference in Rome, Italia 14 November 1985.

Soeharto, with his cabinet, focused in agricultural sector development. He thought that high food security is the requirement to economic and political stability. So he started to build infrastructures in the sector like irrigation system, pest-control facilities, lakes and many more.

Kids in schools were being told that Soeharto was an agriculture genius.

They recognized their country as a big agricultural country. Next thing you know, the jargon ‘Negara Agraris’ became a thing. You would hear people echo the jargon across the country.

But nowadays, we hardly hear that jargon. How come?

According to BPS (Statistics Indonesia), Indonesia had lost about five millions farmers in ten years from 2003–2013. This highly affected the country income. In one year, the country could lose billions of rupiahs because the agriculture sector didn’t contribute much.

Generally, farmer is a hereditary profession. Today’s farmer is the son from previous generation. But bit-by-bit the sons change profession.

This nation has a thick history in agriculture for thousands years, yet farmer today can barely make 20 millions rupiahs (1500 USD) a year. This is the main reason why they sell the land their fathers inherited and find other more ‘prestigious jobs’ instead.

This is one of the things that trigger the needs of digital development for agricultural sector. So farmers can make a better living for themselves. So that farmer can be socially considered as first class community in this ‘Negara Agraris’.

Agriculture Digital Development

Since 2016, the Government of Indonesia started a movement called “Petani dan UMKM Indonesia Go Digital” (Indonesian Farmers and Small Businesses Go Digital). They eventually came to the conclusion that this kind of tech can improve productivity among the rural communities.

According to the study in 26 countries outside Europe, led by a worldly consulting company, cellular apps can improve farmer’s income by 11%. Based on this study, the government decided to support the start-ups to develop their work.

There’s a lot of start-up businesses focus their work into developing digital ways to overcome rural communities problem. They create easy-to-operate cellular apps. With the government supports, they grow fast.

There are some sectors they’re focusing on. Mainly agriculture because the majority of villagers can be said farmers.

Using the app is relatively easy. It is designed for newbies (a.k.a farmers). But easy for us (millennial or those who spend most of the time surfing the web) is particularly hard for farmers. They are used to live a life without Internet.

But it is not impossible. Quoting Ganjar Pranowo, the Governor of Central Java, back in the days people used handwriting to write letters, everybody was having trouble moving to e-mail. But nowadays, we hardly see handwriting letters around.

Everything takes time. And for farmer surfing cyber world is soon to be a common thing.

This development may really be a huge help for rural community. Supporting this digital development should be our concern too. And because sharing is caring, start spreading the word to our farmer-related acquaintances. And also start to educate this community about their phones, if you don’t mind.

Febri Pohan/8villages

All photos © Google

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8villages

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8villages is a leading Information and Technology Company to assist our business partner in dealing with local matters.

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