Agridesa, Good Return & PLUS Bring CAFE Digital to Bali Farmers

Bali, 4 July 2026 — Agridesa, together with Good Return and PLUS, is running CAFE Digital, a digital financial-literacy program for smallholder farmers in Tabanan Regency, Bali. The program brings practical money skills straight to farmers' phones through a WhatsApp chatbot — with no new app to install.

Learning money skills over WhatsApp

At the heart of the program is Teman Belajar Digital, a WhatsApp chatbot operated by Agridesa. Through it, farmers complete short lessons on three themes: tracking and managing money, saving toward goals, and marketing products digitally. The learning is reinforced by Digital Champions — trained farmers who mentor their peers directly in the field.

A Bali-wide pilot, an inter-island vision

As a pilot project, CAFE Digital is designed to reach farmers across Bali — starting in Tabanan Regency with the Agri Mekar Jaya Hub farmer group, then expanding to other parts of the island. Over the program period, CAFE Digital aims to reach up to 10,000 learners, with particular attention to the participation of women and young farmers. Looking ahead, the model is designed to be replicated across other Indonesian islands.

A three-way collaboration

CAFE Digital is delivered through a partnership running since February 2026:

• Good Return — an Australian nonprofit with more than 20 years of experience, as funder and developer of the learning materials.
• PLUS — co-implementing partner for micro-learning content production.
• Agridesa — the program's on-the-ground operator and the provider of the WhatsApp Business account in Indonesia.

"Good financial literacy is what makes a good harvest truly count. Through Teman Belajar Digital, we bring that learning to where farmers already are every day — WhatsApp — with no new app and no cost. With Good Return and PLUS, we want to prove that financial education can run at scale without losing its field-level touch."

— Kristian N. P. Harahap, CEO of Agridesa

A commitment to safeguarding

Alongside the program, Agridesa is strengthening its internal capacity on gender and disability inclusion (GEDSI) and do no harm principles — including child protection and the prevention of exploitation. Farmer participation is voluntary (opt-in), and data collected by the chatbot is handled in line with Agridesa's privacy policy.

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About Agridesa

Agridesa is a closed-loop sourcing platform for Indonesia's smallholder export commodities, starting with cacao. Agridesa is the trading name of PT Agridesa Panen Makmur, domiciled in Menteng, Central Jakarta.

Media contact: info@agridesa.com · agridesa.com · WhatsApp +62 821-2929-8733