Dattabot and GE Digital Work to Secure the
Future of Agriculture in Indonesia
A new day dawns for agriculture in Indonesia
It’s just before sunrise in Lampung province, where a man
named Jumanto watches the horizon for first light. As a third-
generation farmer, the physical work is second nature. He
will soon gather his supplies and walk the same path to the
fields as his father and grandfather before him. But today,
something is different. In the waning darkness, for the first
time ever, a smartphone springs to light. Jumanto smiles as
he checks the conditions of his field: the direction of the wind,
the moisture in the air, even the nitrogen content of his soil—
all before he leaves his front porch. For generations, these
fields have been farmed the same way. But for Jumanto’s
children, a new era has begun—an era driven by rich data and
powerful analytics. This is HARA by Dattabot built on GE’s
Predix, and it will not only change the way Jumanto works his
fields, it stands to make a direct impact on the food security
and food sovereignty of an entire country.
A growing need for
modernization
Agriculture is positioned to play a major role in Indonesia’s
future. But the industry there is facing critical challenges at
nearly every link in the value chain. Large agribusinesses do
not have the land-related data they need to employ more
efficient farming strategies, which has a direct impact on
production costs, competitiveness, and profitability.

Additionally, large agribusinesses tend to focus on profitable

export commodities, like palm oil and rubber. This puts
the pressure of producing staples for everyday life—rice,
soybeans, and other crops—squarely on small farms. Because
many smaller operations still use traditional methods not
suited for modern mass production, Indonesia must rely on
imports to cover these gaps in the country’s food supply.

Agriculture in Indonesia
Represents 13.8% of GDP
Employs 40% of population
Breaking new ground
Across the board, Indonesia’s agriculture industry is facing
one massive shortage. Data. This is where a company
called Dattabot saw an opportunity. Dattabot is a big data
analytics company dedicated to solving mission-critical
challenges in healthcare, finance, government, and many
other industries. Powered by the most advanced analytics and
the most comprehensive data library in Indonesia, Dattabot
unlocks hidden value in data by cleaning, collecting, and
analyzing massive amounts of information and providing Predix cut new
recommendations that deliver real value.
feature development
As a leader in developing connected, responsive, and
predictive digital technologies, GE Digital was the perfect
from two years to
choice to partner with Dattabot in developing an app designed
to transform Indonesia’s agriculture industry. To do this,
one month.
Dattabot leveraged Predix, the world’s only cloud-based
platform designed specifically for industrial-strength data, with
one common connected language and a dedicated, purpose-
built cloud. With GE Digital as a partner and Predix as their
development backbone, Dattabot developed HARA—a smart-
farming solution designed to help take Indonesia’s agriculture
industry into the modern digital industrial age.
Accelerating development
The initial phases of HARA’s development were already underway
prior to Dattabot’s partnership with GE Digital. Using only internal
resources, Dattabot estimated new feature development would take
two years. With GE Digital and Predix, Dattabot was able to remove
barriers to development and streamline time-consuming integration
and UX tasks, which effectively cut the new feature development from
two years to one month.

Starting at the
innovation layer
One of the ways Predix shortened Databox’s time-to-market was
by allowing developers to start at the innovation layer. Dattabot
used Predix microservices—reusable software modules—to reduce
code complexity and move the company away from traditional
architectures that slow development. This saved both time and
money by using code that already exists, rather than creating modules
from scratch.
helped Dattabot to:
• Leverage GE Digital’s vast industrial app expertise
• Utilize streamlined integration and UX tasks
• Access the latest software, even at the edge
• Accelerate time-to-market and time-to-value with a
rich library of microservices

The Predix catalog offered Dattabot a wide variety of microservices to

choose from—geospatial services, anomaly detection, cyber-security,
and more. The availability of these microservices left developers free
to focus on issues that impact Indonesian farmers and the agriculture
industry most, rather than focusing on the mechanics of
app functionality.
HARA: Farming smarter,
not harder
HARA is setting the stage for the next leap forward in
Indonesia’s agricultural practices and food supply. Through a
combination of historical data, manual feedback, sensor input,
satellite imagery, and a powerful analytics engine, HARA
provides a clear path to improved efficiency, profitability, and
overall crop yield.
The application ensures consistent crop productivity and
provides data-driven, value-added insights into farm and field
potential; input and supply management; and the proactive
mitigation of pests and disease.
Key features include:
Data acquisition: Modernizes and streamlines
data acquisition by eliminating unreliable, time-
consuming paper-based collection protocols.
Powerful analytics: Monitors farming
progress and efficiency across millions of data
points collected from thousands of hectares of
land.
Precision agriculture insights: Delivers
smart farming insights and effective strategy
recommendations to ensure efficiency and
optimal productivity.
Getting the lay of the land
Accurate field size information is difficult to come by
in Indonesia. Before HARA, most of this information
existed only in paper records or in the minds of those who
work the fields. With HARA, this data can be collected,
aggregated, stored, and accessed in a variety of different
ways. Fields can be mapped by satellite or by simply
walking the perimeter. Historical data and paper records
can also be entered into the system to provide the most
accurate picture possible of any given filed.
Optimizing inputs,
maximizing outputs
Having access to actual field size information means
farmers can now more accurately estimate the inputs
needed to bring a crop to harvest: seed, fertilizer,
pesticide, labor, etc. The data stored in HARA not only
encourages more proactive farm management and more
effective organization, it also has a direct impact on
overall yield, productivity, and profitability.
Understanding the
land’s potential
A field’s history is almost as difficult to come by in
Indonesia as accurate size information. Many times,
farmers plan a season’s crops without a clear picture
of what’s been grown there before, or what chemicals
the soil has been exposed to season after season. This
historical data is important in the development of
effective and long-lasting crop management strategies.
HARA helps farmers develop a clearer picture of the
soil profile—crop types, inputs used, results achieved—
resulting in better soil management practices and
data-driven recommendations that lead to greater
efficiencies.
Protecting against pests
and disease
A single pest or disease can wipe out an entire harvest.
Farmers relying on traditional “trial and error” methods
may not realize that treatment protocols have shifted
due to changes in temperature, weather patterns,
soil conditions, crop type, and more. HARA tracks the
emergence of pests and disease to establish direct
causal relationships between their appearance and the
field conditions that trigger it. This removes the need for
trial and error and, instead, allows for a more predictive
and proactive approach driven by cause and effect.
Pest and disease data in HARA can then be used to
build a more complete regional picture as more fields
come online. Once this scales to the national level, the
potential for interconnected data to control pests and
disease, and to mitigate their impact on the nation’s
food supply, is unprecedented.
 HARA Results
60% improvement in crop yield
50% reduction in farming inputs
25% reduction in crop failure rates
Where will Dattabot
grow next? “Dattabot set out to do more than change an industry, we
The GE Digital partnership helped bring international credibility, allowing set out to transform Indonesia’s future food sovereignty
Dattabot to open its plans for growth to a much broader market. With and security. GE’s Predix has helped us accelerate this
the robust technologies, expertise, and support GE Digital brings to the transformation faster than we could’ve hoped.”
relationship, Dattabot sees great potential for HARA’s expansion across the
entire agricultural value chain.

This includes a wider distribution throughout Southeast Asia and an

opportunity to expand the use of Predix into every vertical segment served Dina Kosasih,
by Dattabot—from consumer goods and financial institutions to healthcare Dattabot, Agriculture Vertical Lead
and government agencies.
Conclusion
Agriculture is deeply rooted in Indonesia’s history. Thanks
to Dattabot and GE Digital, HARA is now positioned to help
agriculture become a key driver in the country’s future.

By reducing dependencies on imported food staples,

increasing access to mission-critical farming data
and analysis, and creating better communication
between large agribusinesses and small-share farmers
like Jumanto, HARA will help secure a more stable
food supply—and a stronger agriculture industry—for
generations to come.
About GE
GE (NYSE: GE) is the world’s Digital Industrial Company, transforming industry with software-defined machines
and solutions that are connected, responsive and predictive. GE is organized around a global exchange of
knowledge, the “GE Store,” through which each business shares and accesses the same technology, markets,
structure and intellect. Each invention further fuels innovation and application across our industrial sectors.
With people, services, technology and scale, GE delivers better outcomes for customers by speaking the
language of industry.

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Specifications are subject to change without notice. 06 2017