Lutfi’s Story

Lutfi is a 38-year-old shrimp farmer from rural Lamongan, East Java. As an individual farmer, he usually rents the land to his relatives or close neighbours. He goes to the farm almost every day from 9 to 5. During certain spells, he grows paddy when he pauses shrimp farming due to weather conditions. The weather significantly impacts the success of his harvests.

He rarely brings his smartphone to the pond to avoid the risk of it drowning and because it wouldn’t be useful there.

Lutfi’s farm where he spends most of his day

He typically uses WhatsApp or Facebook for only an hour in the afternoon after returning from the field. Consequently, his awareness of digital financial services (DFS) is low. His main sources of information about digital lending and digital wallets are his neighbors and offline touchpoints.

For his farming funds, he usually borrows from either a bank or his middleman, both of which offer suitable repayment terms based on his harvest cycle. When borrowing from his middleman or "Godfather" to buy seeds, he can repay after the harvest without any additional fees. With the bank, he takes out a farmer's loan and repays it twice a year, aligned with his harvest time.

"I can borrow funds from the Godfather to buy seeds without any additional fees, and repay it either after harvesting, or later, if I still need the money." - Lutfi

When shown an agri-tech loan app, he found the terms difficult to understand and the process complicated due to the many forms required. However, he finds the minimum loan amount of IDR 3 million too high, as it exceeds his needs.