On 25th July, 2019, one of ANGIN’s Angels, Laurentia Mellynda, participated as a speaker in the Smart Food Business Workshop arranged by Center for Indonesian Policy Studies (CIPS) which took place at Accelerice, Ariobimo Sentral, Jakarta.
While Indonesia is rich with natural resources, including agriculture, we are still facing many challenges to fulfilling the nationwide food needs. As demand towards food is also bigger than the supply, food prices in Indonesia remains high. Another contributing factor is the lengthiness of the distribution value chain from farmers to consumers as well as farmers’ restricted access to agricultural technologies.
Starting 5 years ago, young Indonesians are moving towards tackling this issue in the agribusiness. Currently there are many start-ups focused on increasing the quality and distribution process of agricultural products, even fisheries. These startups offer various solutions such as through agri-finance, increasing agricultural productivity, direct marketing to consumers (market place), education for farmers, and etc. The presence of these startups brings hope to answer the needs of agricultural matters as well as to help farmers to be more optimized in terms of productions and distribution throughout Indonesia.
The purpose of this workshop is to serve as a platform to connect startups in the agribusiness sector in Indonesia and the public organization working in the food & agriculture Industry to exchange ideas as well as to discuss on their experiments and knowledge so as to give inputs to the agriculture world in Indonesia. The development of Indonesian agricultural sector serves to stabilize the price of food, eventually benefiting the public as consumers and farmers.
This event was attended by about 20-30 participants who are founders to Indonesian agribusiness startups as well as advisors who are representatives from agribusiness companies, government institutes or institutes working in agribusiness or food sector. In this workshop, four companies presented their core businesses and challenges they face which was then followed by discussions by the participants through open space technology format including on what kind of experiences can one share, what can be learnt from the experiences shared, also laying out solutions which can be offered to the challenges laid out.
