Building Blockchain-enabled Community Cattle Farms

Dimitra and SASPRI-IPB team up to support Indonesian cattle farmers

5 min readAug 22, 2023

BELIZE CITY, BELIZE — Dimitra Incorporated, a global Agtech company on a mission to make its technology available to farmers globally, is teaming up with SASPRI-IPB, a social enterprise company linked to the Agriculture Institute Bogor (IPB) to promote the development of community-based cattle farming. This collaboration aims to build Indonesian cattle farmers’ raising capabilities and increase their data-based production and efficiency.

Closing the gap between the supply and demand of beef

To date, domestic production can only satisfy about 45% of the demand for beef in Indonesia. Moreover, most smallholder farmers keep breeding stock rather than fattening cattle. Farmers do this as they aim to have animals for extended periods to provide progeny to be sold and a continuum of stock to provide manure for cropping.

Dimitra and SASPRI are working to close the gap between the supply and demand of beef in Indonesia while supporting and empowering its farmers. In short, they plan to do this by implementing a community cattle farming development program based on a data-driven farming model. In addition, SASPRI will make sure its cattle business owners improve the quality of their breeding cattle with certifications through this program.

A breakdown of the technology

After the farmers have gone through the nine months and ten days of training, in collaboration with SASPRI, Dimitra will implement the Connected Farmer livestock module for these trained cattle farmers. Moreover, the Dimitra platform is built on blockchain technology and incorporates mobile technology, machine learning, IoT devices, satellite and drone imagery, genomics, and advanced farming research.

More specifically, farmers will have access to the following functionalities:

Data acquisition
Process management
Data analysis and artificial intelligence
Report generation
Operational control center
Hardware integration like ear tags

“SASPRI believes that by using Dimitra, smallholder farmers can increase the transparency and quality of their products. With traceability, consumers can trace the origins of products. Consumers can also understand the cultivation methods used and appreciate the hard work of breeders. It also helps protect farmers from unfounded accusations against their products,” says Founder and Chairman of SASPRI, Professor Muladno. “Collaboration between the government, universities, the business world, and technology such as Dimitra is very important. It supports the growth and digital transformation of the agriculture, livestock, and plantation sectors. Using the right technology, smallholder farmers can gain the recognition they deserve and continue their role in providing high-quality products that consumers value.”

Using data-driven farming to grow a community

There are a few things that these two organizations will keep in mind during this partnership. Firstly, exploring collaboration patterns in the data-based community cattle breeding program. Secondly, continuously initiating, assisting, monitoring, and evaluating the performance of this program.

The main focus of this program is cattle. However, there are opportunities for other farm animals, such as buffalo, sheep, and goats. Dimitra will add these animals to the program on a case-by-case basis.

Ultimately, SASPRI, in collaboration with Dimitra, is working to recruit smallholder cattle breeders and improve their capabilities through education and certification. Following that, they plan to consolidate them into a cooperative. The goal is to increase competitiveness and improve the welfare of farmers. In fact, they are inviting local universities and governments to take advantage of their role in mobilizing breeders.

“Fortunately, the presence of technology like that developed by Dimitra is expected to bring positive changes. Through this technology, customers and consumers will now be able to obtain consolidated information on livestock numbers, livestock origin, quality, and health of livestock,” says Founder and Chairman of SASPRI, Professor Muladno. “By utilizing Dimitra’s technology, SASPRI’s efforts to build a collective business that aims to encourage the independence of farmers, ranchers, and area managers can be realized more quickly and more massively. SASPRI believes that this movement can strengthen the livestock sector as a whole through close cooperation and the use of the right technology. Even though it started on a small scale, this collective business has the potential to grow and reach a national scale.”

Professor Muladno, Head of the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development Studies and the founder and chairman of SASPRI

Overview from Ricky

Dimitra’s Indonesian country partner, Ricky Tanudibrata, says, “SASPRI-IPB and SPR, which is its educational arm, are instrumental in educating livestock entrepreneurs to follow sustainable farming practices, meet market volume and quality needs and, finally, build their welfare.

For this reason, Dimitra is here, providing solutions that are easy to implement and can be followed up by farmers. The interactions between breeders and the Dimitra technology ecosystem recorded on the blockchain will benefit other stakeholders in the beef supply chain. Buyers and consumers know exactly what they buy/eat and enjoy the transparency provided by the system.

Not to mention, this data-driven openness is undeniable. In turn, it will give the independent cattle farming community more opportunities and the confidence to grow. It will increase the availability of beef and improve the beef’s great taste. In addition, the availability of meat from smallholder cattle farms, which is healthier for consumers, will also increase.

So the strategic collaboration between SASPRI-IPB and Dimitra is to build the capacity of smallholder cattle breeders to be able to provide beef from their cattle farms. This beef is raised based on excellent and sustainable animal husbandry practices. It comes from the farms using Dimitra’s Connected Farmer platform. It is healthier for consumers and, at the same time, for our environment.”