Agriculture is an important part of the Indonesian economy, dominated by the country’s 2.6 million smallholder farmers. The Indonesian government needed to know more about them to formulate effective support policies. UN Global Pulse Jakarta collaborated with the Ministry of National Development Planning (Bappenas), using census data to design a dashboard that categorises farmers by their size of their land and the commodities they produce as an aide to policy-making. The dashboard shows how small farms are distributed across provinces, what they produce and which family members work there, all useful information to guide government interventions during economic shocks.
Our impact
The dashboard we produced covers all of Indonesia’s 34 provinces, allowing for better agricultural policies and planning from the national down to the sub-district level, potentially making life better for the one-third of Indonesia’s labourers who work in agriculture. New insights inform government policies and support systems, from infrastructure development and training programs to subsidies and credits, enhancing income and sustainability for smallholder farmers. The dashboard benefits the Directorate of Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises within Bappenas, as well as other ministries and government institutions.
When the dashboard is integrated with additional datasets from different ministries, it will facilitate more comprehensive analysis and insight into the sector, supporting long-term resilience planning, improved land certification processes, and innovative agricultural extension programs. We plan to further develop the project by integrating additional datasets, to shed light on how the agriculture sector meshes with other national development areas.
Our lessons
- Technological tools like the dashboard can foster better policies and interventions, particularly during economic shocks.
- Big data analytics have huge potential to guide strategic decisions.
- Addressing complex national issues like smallholder farming requires multi-disciplinary collaboration.
- Further investment is needed in data management and visualisation tools to develop adaptive technological tools that can integrate varying data sets.
- By highlighting the substantial contribution smallholder farms make to the nation’s economy, this project underscored the need for more support to this sector.