Pinduoduo Takes Part in Agri-Food Innovation Summit, Shares Lessons on What Helps Smallholder Farmers

Pinduoduo participated in the Asia-Pacific Agri-Food Innovation Summit on October 26, where it presented its ″Tech for Agri″ approach to encouraging the development and implementation of agritech that improves farmers' livelihoods.

From L-R: Lesly Goh, XinYi Lim, Gibran Huzaifah, Mark Khan.

XinYi Lim, Executive Director of Sustainability and Agricultural Impact at Pinduoduo, China’s largest agricultural platform, also participated in a panel to discuss the challenges of scaling digital farming platforms.

Pinduoduo separately hosted a discussion at the Summit with a panel of experts who shared first-hand experience working in agritech and with smallholder farmers in Indonesia, India, and China. The session was moderated by Lesly Goh, Senior Technology Advisor at the World Bank Group.
 
During the discussion, Lim spoke about the importance of having the scale of consumer demand in creating the right incentives for farmers to embrace technology. She also shared the conditions that enabled Pinduoduo to succeed in promoting agricultural e-commerce and helping other parts of the value chain.

Fellow panelist Gibran Huzaifah, CEO of eFishery, shared how companies must tailor their strategy to what works for the individual markets they operate in, rather than adopt a one-size-fits-all approach.

In his case, eFishery got its start by being persistent and showing the farmers in Indonesia that they are there for them even during the tough times. ″It was the personal relationships rather than the technology or business case that persuaded many farmers to give us a chance,″ he said.

Mark Khan, a co-founder and managing partner of Omnivore, an impact venture capital firm in India, shared how the agritech startups that succeeded tend to be those that address the broader ecosystem, rather than offer solutions to a narrow problem.

He also noted that investment in agritech has grown significantly over the years and that the investment sentiment has shifted from growth-at-any-cost to a focus on profitability.