AgResults’ Five-Year Journey to Accelerate Aquaculture Technology And Technical Assistance Use In Indonesia

Indonesia has enormous potential for aquaculture development, which plays a vital role in food security and the national economy. Despite this potential, smallholder farmers—who make up 70% of all farmers in Indonesia—still face a number of challenges. Aquaculture is vulnerable to various risks, such as degraded water quality and disease outbreaks that can lead to severe shrimp or fish mortality. Additionally, feed costs, which represent up to 70% of total production expenses in intensive farming, place a growing burden on farmers, particularly when feeding practices are inefficient.

To address these challenges, the AgResults Indonesia Aquaculture Challenge Project (2021-2026) was launched. This five-year Pay-for-Results competition used monetary incentives to engage the private sector and to encourage shrimp and fish farmers to adopt on-farm technologies, such as aerators to increase water oxygen levels and auto-feeders to automate feeding. In the project’s third year, it added a technical assistance (TA) prize to complement the use of these technologies and to help smallholder farmers manage water quality and disease risks. This project was managed by WWF-Indonesia with support from the Directorate General of Aquaculture, Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries.

 Over five years, this project involved 13 technology competitors and 9 technical assistance competitors, successfully promoting technology adoption and TA across 34 provinces. By the end of the competition in June 2026, the technology competition engaged a total of 3973 smallholder farmers with 14,068 technology units sold or rented. Meanwhile, the TA competition reached 720 smallholder farmers with 855 packages provided. Overall, participating companies received a total of US$ 1,427,752.57 in prizes through these two competitions.

Better Products and Marketing to Boost Farmer Productivity and Efficiency

Throughout the competition, participating companies adapted their approaches to better engage smallholder farmers, learning the best products to offer and the most effective ways to reach new customers. The prize competition structure served as a platform not only for competitors offering traditional technologies, but also for those introducing modern technologies. In the modern category, technologies were evaluated based on having additional innovation (such as microbubble technology), green energy adaptation, and Internet of Things (IoT) integration, while modern auto-feeders were judged based on green energy and IoT capabilities.

Initially, innovations were technology-driven, focusing on technical performance rather than user needs or field conditions. They emphasized specifications such as aeration capacity, motor efficiency, and automation features without fully adapting to smallholder aquaculture contexts. As a result, the innovations led to advanced aerator and auto-feeders that were often too complex, expensive, and unsuitable for smallholder farmers. Over time, competitors pivoted to a more user-centric and market-driven approach: Some competitors actually redesigned their technologies to make them easier to operate, while others focused more on market responsiveness and offering an expanded range of equipment tailored to smallholders’ needs, including more affordable tools. To support this, sales strategies also evolved to include flexible payment like rentals, installments, and bundled technical assistance.

“Competitors realize that upgrading smallholder farmers requires an ecosystem approach, where all components of aquaculture are involved,” said Coco Kokarkin, a member of the AgResults Technical Advisory Committee (TAC).

Technology has streamlined daily operations. Aerators, for example, help maintain stable dissolved oxygen levels in ponds—especially at night when the risk of oxygen depletion for fish or shrimp is at its highest, which is particularly critical in intensive aquaculture systems with high stocking densities where oxygen demand increases significantly. Meanwhile, auto-feeders help regulate feeding schedules, sparing farmers from the chore of manual feeding multiple times a day. This technology significantly saves labor time and reduces the need for daily hired hands, as well as improves feed efficiency by delivering feed more consistently and in controlled portions.

“Having a paddlewheel means I don’t have to wake up in the middle of the night,” noted Patih, a farmer from Sumatra.

“They are becoming tech-savvy, realizing that adding tools like paddlewheels can boost shrimp and fish harvests,” said Nonot, Director of CV Republik Vannamei.

Beyond the products themselves, competitors learned how to forge new relationships with farmers whom they previously had not engaged. To enable competitors to reach and connect with smallholder farmers, Project Manager WWF-Indonesia organized regional roadshows. These forums facilitated discussions on farming challenges while promoting competitors’ products. Driven by these roadshows and market-focused promotions, smallholder farmers increasingly adopted new technologies.

With more relevant products to offer and more effective ways to conduct outreach, competitors were able to drive up technology acceptance among farmers, especially once they saw tangible field benefits. Proven to increase productivity, on-farm technology like aerators and auto-feeders were no longer viewed as temporary tools but as smart long-term investments.

Technical Assistance to Drive Innovation and Best Practices

Added as a separate prize in Year 3 of the project, TA packages helped to enhance farmers’ decision-making and their application of aquaculture best practices.

Instead of identifying diseases only after fish mortality, disciplined data recording and water quality monitoring enabled farmers to anticipate risks and better understand their ponds. TA provided by participating companies also shifted mindsets, encouraging farmers to adopt modern innovations such as the biofloc system promoted nationally by the Indonesian Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries in 2020.

Dwi Agus, a tilapia farmer since 2002, converted his traditional earthen ponds into a circular tank biofloc system in 2025 with assistance from the AgResults competition. This TA has boosted water efficiency and significantly increased productivity.

Reflecting on the impact, Agus stated, “The most memorable aspect of this technical assistance is the significant harvest surge in smaller area.”

The benefits of these technologies have spread organically among farmers: They share positive experiences with each other, helping build trust and credibility around the approaches without needing too much direct encouragement from other external stakeholders.

“In the end, farmers become potential partners for competitors as the final point of sale,” said Arief Arianto, a member of the AgResults Technical Advisory Committee (TAC). 

Women’s Expanding Role in Aquaculture

Although aquaculture is often seen as a male-dominated sector, field practices have shown that smallholder farmers heavily rely on the family, particularly women. Historically, women have played a vital role in financial management, handling both household expenses and farming operations. They are also deeply involved in post-harvest processes, from product sorting to yield recording.

Recognizing this, starting in Year 2, the project promoted women’s empowerment through three financial literacy and entrepreneurship trainings to strengthen financial management capacity. A total of 94 women participated in these trainings, which covered a wide range of topics: budget planning, saving strategies, wise lending, financial communication, business planning techniques, product pricing strategies, marketing insights, and risk management. The trainings also included pre- and post-assessments to gauge participant learning and session effectiveness.

Over time, not only has the number of female farmers increased, but more women are also entering the field as technicians. Although still in the early stages, opportunities for women are expanding, especially through small-scale aquaculture technologies that can be managed closer to home.

“While the number of women working directly at the ponds is still lower than men, the trend is now on the rise,” said Ery Damayanti, a member of the AgResults Technical Advisory Committee (TAC).

Post-Project Strategy: Innovation and Government Engagement

Even as the AgResults project ends, there has been a series of concerted efforts to ensure that technology adoption and technical assistance continue beyond the competition period. This post-project strategy is vital so that the technology adoption, innovation development, and productivity gains established during the project can continue in the years following the competition.

One big part is that competitors are leveraging their prize money to strengthen various aspects of their businesses, such as enhancing marketing strategies, driving innovation through R&D, and boosting human resource capacity. Several competitors have already prepared next-phase business models. These include developing more energy-efficient tools, leveraging IoT-based systems, expanding technical assistance services, and maintaining bundled sales models and flexible payment systems to reach a broader market.

Furthermore, to ensure long-term benefits after the project concludes, WWF-Indonesia has collaborated with the government on two pilot projects in Pati and Mojokerto. These targeted interventions showcase innovative practices within a government-managed aquaculture site, boosting awareness and generating lessons for replication and scale-up.  The Pati pilot focused on demonstrating aquaculture technologies in saline tilapia farming in brackish water ponds, while the Mojokerto pilot showcased a biofloc-based tilapia farming system supported by technology and technical assistance that AgResults competitors provided.

These initiatives have served as direct proof of the competitors’ technology performance and TA while also measuring the real impact of technology adoption on aquaculture productivity. The outcomes of these pilots will provide valuable insights for the government to facilitate policy that encourages adoption of aquaculture technologies by smallholder farmers and extension workers. In turn, this prioritization by the government creates opportunities for competitors to further scale up their technology and technical support, ensuring that the sector will continue to flourish long after the competition ends.

Overall, the AgResults Indonesia Aquaculture Challenge Project demonstrated that an incentive-based competition model can serve as a powerful catalyst for aquaculture technology adoption and TA in Indonesia. The project has sparked on-farm innovation, creating more tailored aerators and auto-feeders, fostered greater technology acceptance among smallholder farmers, and boosted incomes through more efficient aquaculture practices. Ultimately, this initiative has strengthened value chain linkages between the private sector and smallholder farmers, positioning the country’s aquaculture sector for growth and innovation for many years to come.