The Rumble of Kerinci Coffee: When Women Lead Data-Driven Agricultural Transformation
Amidst the challenges of Indonesia’s agro maritime sector, an inspiring story emerges from Kerinci, Jambi. The ALKO coffee farming community has proven that innovation and empowerment can change the face of traditional agriculture.
ALKO’s cooperative model places farmers as the main shareholders, and has succeeded in improving the welfare of its members through fair prices, dividend distribution and a spirit of collaboration.
More interestingly, ALKO has become a magnet for the highly educated young generation, including women. One of them is Puput Sari Puspita, a law graduate who is now leading the data-based transformation of coffee plantations at ALKO.
In a short time, Puput succeeded in implementing the Dimitra Connected Coffee Traceability platform. Together with her team, Puput carries out farmer data collection, land mapping and regular production records. Puput’s obsession with data and blockchain technology opens up new opportunities for him and other young colleagues to build a data-based Indonesian coffee industry.
Puput and her colleagues proved that the technology can be applied even in remote areas, such as in the village of Kayu Aro in the fertile Kerinci volcanic valley, which is a 10-hour drive from the nearest provincial capital. Puput has been successfully utilizing the Dimitra Connected Coffee Traceability platform, which enables farmer data collection, land mapping and regular production recording. Slowly but surely, the coffee farming community, whose members are 40% women, will understand the concepts of traceability, deforestation and blockchain. Puput and her colleagues are on a data-driven farming mission to help us all face climate change and start building real carbon savings.
ALKO believes that data is the key to increasing marketing value, helping farmers deal with climate change, and benefit from carbon sequestration. ALKO targets traceability for all their partner coffee cooperatives in eleven provinces in Indonesia. They also do not hesitate to provide blockchain-based deforestation information and EUDR due diligence documents to all their buyers/importers.
The collaboration with ALKO is transforming agriculture into a global platform, empowering young people, both women and men, to lead change. Activities in villages, such as those carried out by ALKO in collaboration with DIMITRA, are clear proof that agricultural transformation can occur anywhere and be led by anyone, including women and the younger generation in rural areas. This initiative not only improves the welfare of farmers, but also contributes to environmental preservation and sustainable agricultural development in Indonesia.
