Indonesia’s National Food Brigade, Dataswyft to Launch Smart Data Ecosystem for Food Security

JAKARTA, Investortrust.id — The National Food Brigade under the Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Indonesia and Dataswyft have signed a memorandum of understanding to develop a smart data ecosystem to strengthen the country’s food security. The agreement was formalized at Building D of the Ministry of Agriculture in Ragunan, Jakarta, on Thursday, August 14, 2025.

The collaboration seeks to digitally empower Indonesia’s agricultural sector by supporting land expansion, improving field operations, optimizing resource use, and enabling more effective program monitoring. By ensuring that data is secure, shareable, and user-controlled, the initiative aims to solve one of the sector’s biggest challenges — the lack of coordination caused by fragmented systems and siloed information.

“Partnering with Dataswyft enables us to use smart identity and data to coordinate multiple agencies, stakeholders, and farmers for food security and rural prosperity,” said Chairman of the National Food Brigade Ichi Indrawan on Thursday.

Ichi called the program a much-needed agritech solution for monitoring, overseeing, and managing the brigade’s workflow in achieving President Prabowo Subianto’s food self-sufficiency goals. “It will also enable our food brigade program to be accelerated,” he said.

Privacy-First Wallet

At the heart of the initiative is the Dataswyft Wallet, a privacy-first digital tool that allows users to collect, own, use, and share their data on their terms. This infrastructure will give farmers and agricultural communities access to tailored government and private-sector services, personalized support, and the ability to contribute verified data to national initiatives — all while retaining control over how their data is used.

"Indonesia is demonstrating bold leadership by adopting a global, cross-border digital public infrastructure of smart data that will enable the country and its people to leapfrog into the next-generation digital economy," said Professor Irene Ng, CEO of Dataswyft Group London.

Alongside the MoU, Dataswyft announced the establishment of its country operations and the HATLAB Studio in Jakarta. The studio will serve as a collaborative space for specialists, as well as technology and capital partners interested in smart data markets.

Davide Ceper, senior director of Global Strategy and Growth at Dataswyft, said the platform will act as a unifying hub for collaboration between farmers, offtakers, agricultural companies, and cooperatives. 

"This MoU sets the foundation for seamless digital and physical collaboration across the agricultural value chain, unlocking growth, efficiency, and prosperity for Indonesia’s farming communities," he said.

Pilot Project

The pilot project will begin in southern Sumatra, with an estimated budget of $5 million to build a system for 10 million farmers’ data.

"Transforming Indonesia's agricultural economy into a smart data ecosystem will enable greater transparency in agricultural practices, leading to the emergence of innovative instruments for agricultural financing. This is very attractive to capital partners in our network," said Rusmin Lawin, Deputy Chair of the Advisory Board of the National Food Brigade.

Dataswyft is a distributed network company that facilitates secure, regulated, and interconnected data exchange between individuals, businesses, and public institutions through advanced technology and strong governance. Its core product, the Dataswyft Wallet, acts as a data intermediary embedded in apps and websites, enabling the secure collection, use, and sharing of data across digital systems.