SPEAKERS
Lourdes Gant, Liris Maduningtyas
Lourdes Gant 0:05
As a business owner of an aquaculture company, how can you take the first step to be profitable and sustainable at the same time? That’s what we’re going to be talking about in these episodes. Hello, and welcome to the business of agriculture podcast. This is the podcast for the Sustainable Business movement in the Aquafarming and ocean ranching industries. This podcast aims to amplify the voices of entrepreneurs addressing the United Nations global goals, aka Sustainable Development Goals. Number 14. To conserve and sustainably use the oceans and the seas, listening to fellow business aquaculturists in their journey in this new model of food production, of making their business sustainable, and help the ecology of the ocean, while also making a profit all at the same time. Get inspired to learn how even small to medium businesses can make an impact, save the seas, leave a legacy, and have a better quality of life. One of our goals is to take away a nugget of wisdom that will help your business move from the industrial revolution to business 5.0 Our vision is that of collaboration in the aquaculture industry. I’m Laura scant your host
Lourdes Gant 1:25
As an aquaculture business, how do you become innovative in a new part of the agriculture industry and be sustainable at the same time? This episode is dedicated to answering that question. So listening and I hope you enjoy this episode. If you listen to episode nine, Steve Miller addressed how his company ch for global is focusing on zero methane agriculture and using sustainable aquaculture to impact climate change at scale. Welcome to Episode 10 Season Two of the business of aquaculture this episode I’m proud to interview the IRS maddening guest who is one of the eight finalists in the recently concluded global aquaculture challenge last October seven Welcome to the show. Liris Oh, yes.
Liris Maduningtyas 2:12
Hello,
Lourdes Gant 2:13
there is from Indonesia is the co-founder and CEO of Charla that tech that improves shrimp production using data-driven farming. There is has five years of experience as an engineer and as a businesswoman. She is driven to help farmers be more tech-savvy in problem-solving. She has an interesting experience when in a shrimp farm, which is how the farmer checks the quality of the water by dipping a finger in the water and then putting it in the mouth. Because of this. She wants to help farmers become more tech-savvy. Welcome to the show. Again dairies.
Liris Maduningtyas 2:48
Hi, good to be here.
Lourdes Gant 2:50
Before I ask you more questions tell us about this experience of dipping your finger in the water in the shrimp farm.
Liris Maduningtyas 2:57
Right. So I was the main keynote back then when I first met my co-founder, who happens to be a strong farmer. So he has this experience about knowing exactly why the stream is actually growing better or growing failures. So I have to really cross-check what happens to the industry. So I took my car and traveled to Iran Java like Java is an island in Indonesia, which is the main island. So I took like one and a half months. distressing from farm to farm. And when meeting the farmers, I believe they’re 65 farmers I met two to three of them say that when I asked them, What are you doing when you want us to measure the quality of the water to really check the shrimp’s condition and, and then they asked me to depart. And then he got down and put his fingers to the water and it’s just tasted, and he just lift the finger up and say this is good. And that’s basically how the farmers tell whether the strength is actually living comfortably in the water or not. I was an engineer, I knew about sensors. I know about IoT. I know what data, I know what app, and many things that actually can help him perform better in deciding what’s happened in the pod. That’s the story.
Lourdes Gant 4:32
That’s so fun. It’s so fun to see how innovation gets started. So thank you for sharing that story. So you’re in Indonesia and exactly you’re my first woman Guess who’s actually coming from Asia. So I’m so happy that you said yes to being interviewed.
Liris Maduningtyas 4:49
Yes, yes, sir. Please tell us
Lourdes Gant 4:53
in your area or location. What is your advice to small businesses wanting to embark on sustainable Agriculture or green technology, I know you share your story, which is kind of related to this question. But maybe you can tell us more?
Liris Maduningtyas 5:08
Well, to be honest, because I know that I come from low-income families as well. So I know that practicing the fillable grid is very difficult and different climates from basically the pharmaceutical using sustainable and green practices require a lot of capital, to improve the infrastructure to start the permit, license and deflected change the standard operational procedures, this eight is the different approach that a farmer needs to be done in order for them to be sustainable, or green. Or not just farmers, just like any small business. So my advice is really to think about what’s the future of their business because implementing sustainable and green practices, they need to think about scaling up a business, which means not only double or triple, but 10x growth they need to achieve yours is not easy, and especially from the low-income countries. So I know that maybe in Europe, America, sustainable green practices are quite familiar, because it’s also it’s okay, but here in Indonesia, Southeast Asia, it’s not something that the farmers can do in the second. So really think about the scaling of the business and looking for investors. So that’s my advice.
Lourdes Gant 6:35
Thank you so much for sharing that. It’s fascinating that you said that because I’m in Canada now. But I used to be from the Philippines. And that’s something I share with you as well, coming from a poverty-stricken background is when we talk about sustainability. It’s something that seems to be far out and Farfetch because it’s just something that I wouldn’t say nobody is talking about. We do care for the planet. But it’s just something that is not a common language. I was talking to some of the members of the Association of sustainability practitioners that I belong to, that most of the people, it’s fascinating that you started with your story about how farmers just find out how their shrimps are able to survive by just by tasting that water. It’s almost like it’s innate, that leaving that sustainability in a more simple, I guess, and practical manner. So thank you. My second question is, how would you solve the bureaucracy challenge that regulates the industry to the business so that it can be more supportive, versus be hampered by rulings?
Liris Maduningtyas 7:43
I think one thing from my experience, something that can fight the bureaucracy if you need to put some regulations to build a strong community center, in Indonesia swim, we do have like a lot of communities. So associations, communities, upstream farmers, for example, they’re really big enough to basically push the government to push on regulation, approving, or getting perspective. But one of the regulations, on the other hand, a community can also apply for the justice of the stream farmers. One of the cases is that sometimes policemen come to the farmers and ask for a contributing fee or something like that. So this is not okay, and the community will fight back. And just like you know, securing the police department in the area and something like that. So I guess it’s all about the community that seems to be working at this point. But I know it’s not going to be strong enough in the future. So we definitely need a lot of intrapreneurs in this stage to basically work together with the farmers work together with the community to increase the voice of the spirit of casting.
Lourdes Gant 9:00
Thank you. Again, I am so happy and delighted that you accepted to be a guest. I seldom interview people from North America. While I’m only new in the podcast, this is my second season. But I’m glad that I get to have this other perspective coming from the other side of the world. It’s very telling what you said about building a community. And I think I mentioned in some of my other episodes about the value cycle for entrepreneurs, after you have a following, it’s pertinent that there’s the building of the community, so that you can have a group of individuals that help support you in what you’re doing in business. So I’m glad that you mentioned that. So my last question is, what’s one thing you think will still be here and will not change? 10 years from now,
Liris Maduningtyas 9:47
people with a small mindset. So we have that a lot in Indonesia. There are people that are living in 1999 as is In Indonesia, you know, we’re growing a lot, but there’s a lot of people that is not growing. So we still have this kind of people that are stuck with one ideology, or one perspective, that is basically very toxic for the industry itself. And in every generation will always facing that kind of thing. Maybe that’s one of them, technology and so on. Of course, it’s going to be, impressive. Girls, and entrepreneurs, impressive close to everything. But this mindset of people that really stuck on the person that I feel lucky on one religion factor for 100 days, that’s not going to change. Well, that’s
Lourdes Gant 10:43
brilliant. That’s actually brilliant. are you saying that? Because most of the people who answer this question from my previous interviews mentioned about, of course, agriculture is not going to change, it’s going to be part of the next decade, aquaculture is gonna be the same. But you’re absolutely right. On the downside, there are people who are stuck with old ways of doing things that will prevent people from most especially business owners making a stride towards the future. But the world is a duality, there’s the positive and negative. And so there’s the progressive. And there’s also the people who you mentioned are stuck in their ways. So I’m glad that that gives, I guess, a spectrum of the whole industry. So I normally have just three questions. But I’m just so happy that I’m getting a different perspective, from your insights. Maybe you can tell us about the technology that you presented at the global agriculture Alliance because it was so good.
Liris Maduningtyas 11:39
So we do help the farmers, managing the farmers by the applications, the IoT, to make the farmers realize that I spread importance. So I’m having this dream database of Indonesia, where I basically know Western farmers was the center of the strength versus the performance of the farms in Africa agents say that productivity is a preference and to relate it to the performance of the system in every day in Indonesia, that basically allowed me to be able to help farmers in market access and providing them with the funding from investors, banks and so on. And of course, insurance because they now believe in aquaculture because hey, we better data we are high tech industry we have not aquaculture 20 years ago, there’s something different and I’m glad that the farmers can experience that kind of impact having a technology side of the
Lourdes Gant 12:40
the world I am so proud of you. I mean a woman in business in an industry that’s agriculture, just paving the way for the internet of things for I call it society 5.0 business 5.0 we’re in we’ve already developed a lot of positive things in agriculture This is not the same society 1.0 where the farmers are in just agrarian society or hunter-gatherer We are now at the brink of all this technology that’s available for us thank you again for being on the show. Leary’s How can they get in touch with you?
Liris Maduningtyas 13:16
They can reach me to lyris at dalla dot tech or you can just go to Java dot tech or tech you basically will find me
Lourdes Gant 13:25
That sounds great thank you again, Leary’s you can contact her love this Java dot tech. And my biggest takeaway from this episode is when you were saying about thinking about the future of business because that’s how you’re going to forecast how you’re going to embark on what kind of process you’re going to use in your business. So do our subscribers do leave a review of the podcast so we can get more people to be aware of the value our guests are providing in these conversations? If you’re new to the podcast, I’d like to hear from you Thanks, everyone. Thanks again Leary’s really appreciate you. Thank you for listening, and I hope you are inspired by this episode. Do take a moment and share this with your friends and colleagues and rate and review the podcast wherever you get your podcasts. I’d love to know what your biggest takeaway from this conversation has been? What are you going to do differently? Please share thoughts across social media and tag us for links and Show Notes for this episode, visit our website www dot sustainable aquaculture.ca slash podcast. Thank you again. I hope you will join me on the next episode and together we can help create a better business in aquaculture.
