Pundi X and HARA to bring blockchain to farming

Pundi X, a global developer of blockchain-based technology solutions, and HARA, the Indonesian company dedicated to revolutionizing global agriculture with data, will jointly deploy thousands of blockchain-based point of sales (POS) devices to farmers to facilitate data collection and financial inclusion across developing economies.

HARA collects real-time data from across the agricultural and food value chain in developing markets to boost productivity, profits, and livelihoods for farmers and employees. Farmers, NGOs, and other on-the-ground partners are incentivized to provide data on ecological, crop, and market conditions with HARA Tokens, which can in turn be monetized.

In a partnership announced, the Pundi X POS, a point of sales device enabling transactions in digital currencies, will be used by farmers to collect and exchange these incentives. It will be deployed initially across Indonesian villages at an approximate density of one device for every 200 farmers in participating areas. It will also help promote financial inclusion among farmers who can use the blockchain-based POS independently of financial institutions. More than 50 per cent of consumers in Indonesia's economy are 'unbanked' despite the existence of more than 200 banks nationally.

HARA has collected agricultural data from about 10,000 farmers across Indonesia, with the support of Indonesian regional governments and directly-elected local government leaders and will target a further seven other priority agriculture markets across South and Southeast Asia, Latin America, and East Africa, with a projected future international total base of up to 2 million users.

The collected data will not only be exchangeable for incentives but can also be leveraged to focus agricultural resources more efficiently and to avoid wastage. These gains directly benefit farmers' livelihoods, with the World Bank estimating every one percent gain in agricultural productivity results in a commensurate decrease in the number of people living in poverty.The data is of commercial use to consumers increasingly interested in the provenance of foodstuffs, insurers in need of data about market and farming conditions, and governments and interests across a fast-growing global smart agriculture market forecast to reach $12 billion (USD) by 2021.

"A founding aim of Pundi X was to bring the benefits of blockchain technology and digital payments to the unbanked and to promote financial inclusion and independence," said Constantin Papadimitriou, the President and co-founder of Pundi X. “Pundi X POS will soon be rolled out among HARA's already-impressive network of farming partners and can help facilitate their plans to better such a significant sector of the world economy and the lives of the hundreds of millions of people who depend upon it", he added.

Regi Wahyu, the CEO and co-founder of HARA, said: "The data we are already collecting from farmers brings benefits to transportation, to consumers, to commercial interests and to governments. The addition of the Pundi X POS to our ecosystem allows us to connect another missing link, which is the processing of digital payments for the large unbanked populations in global agriculture we're aiming to serve".

Listiyono, the head of Bakalan Village, Kapas District, said: "HARA can help with financial inclusion because they guarantee valid farmers' data, which makes the process for the banks easier.”

To raise capital, HARA is currently in the process of conducting an Initial Token Sale, conducted through the Liquid ICO Market and Tokenomy Launchpad platforms. The pre-sale period will last until November 13, followed by a public sale period from November 13 until November 30,2018.

The Pundi X POS is being shipped to thousands of pre-order customers in markets such as Singapore, Taiwan, Brazil and Colombia and was recently announced as the chosen technology to run digital payments for Dubai's government-backed official credit bureau. The company is aiming to deliver 100,000 devices by 2021.