Pupuk Indonesia Encourages Thousands of Innovators to Strengthen the Agricultural Innovation Ecosystem and National Food Independence

JAKARTA - PT Pupuk Indonesia (Persero) again held the "FertInnovation Challenge 2025" which was attended by more than 1,620 innovators ranging from students, researchers, professionals, to startups from various institutions both at home and abroad. Through this innovation convention, Pupuk Indonesia encourages the strengthening of the agricultural innovation ecosystem and national food independence.

"The FertInnovation Challenge is not just an innovation competition, but as a strategic instrument for the company to build a research and innovation pipeline that is relevant to the challenges of the national fertilizer sector and industry. This event is in line with Pupuk Indonesia's commitment to supporting national food self-sufficiency through strengthening innovation, technology, and collaboration across stakeholders," said Director of Engineering and Business Development of Pupuk Indonesia, Jamsaton Nababan in the Awarding Ceremony FertInnovation Challenge 2025 in Jakarta, Wednesday, February 4.

In the implementation of the FertInnovation Challenge 2026, Pupuk Indonesia collaborated with the Indonesia Agrichemical Research Institute (IARI). This biennial platform is a medium for Pupuk Indonesia to create agricultural transformation based on innovation.

This event is designed as a strategic open innovation platform to absorb transformative ideas from external innovators. In addition, it is also to answer the challenges of sustainability and the big agenda of Indonesia's food independence.

This year, the FertInnovation Challenge carries the theme "Cultivating Innovation, Achieving Food Self-Sufficiency". High enthusiasm is reflected in the participation of cross-disciplinary and cross-institutional contributions in each category.

The four strategic categories in this event are Precision Agriculture & Digital Farming, Climate Resilience & Sustainable Fertilizer, AI-Driven Agri Supply Chain, and Process & Plant Engineering. Each of the submitted innovation works has gone through a gradual selection process, ranging from administrative screening to final pitching.

"These four categories are designed to meet the needs of innovation from upstream to downstream, ranging from precision crop cultivation techniques, fertilizer distribution systems and supply chains, environmental sustainability, to process reliability and production facilities," said Jamsaton.

These innovators receive prizes of up to billions of rupiah, where the Best Innovation or Champion 1 from each category will receive a prize of Rp. 30 million, then the Champion 2 from each category receives Rp. 20 million, and the Champion 3 per category receives Rp. 10 million.

In addition to appreciation for the winners, the FertInnovation Challenge 2025 also opens opportunities for incubation and continued collaboration so that the selected ideas can be developed into real solutions for the industry up to Rp2 billion.

Jamsaton said that the FertInnovation Challenge is a cross-sector collaboration space that brings together the industrial world, academics, researchers, and policy makers in an integrated innovation ecosystem. The FertInnovation Challenge is not just a competition, but part of an effort to build a collaborative, sustainable, and impactful innovation ecosystem.

"We believe that the innovations born from FertInnovation will contribute significantly to improving the efficiency of the production process, the resilience of the fertilizer distribution system, environmental sustainability, and national agricultural productivity," said Jamsaton.

He emphasized that this year's implementation further confirms the role of Pupuk Indonesia as an innovation enabler in the agri-business sector. Through an open innovation approach, the company encourages collaboration between academics, researchers, and practitioners to accelerate the downstreaming of research and create economic and social added value for the community.

"We hope that the efforts and collaboration that we build through FertInnovation will be an important part in realizing an increasingly innovative, competitive, and sustainable Indonesian Fertilizer, as well as supporting national food security," concluded Rahmad.

LIST OF WINNERS OF FERTINNOVATION CHALLENGE 2025 CATEGORY PRECISION & DIGITAL FARMING

Champion 1

NilamGuard: Multi-Sensor Fusion System for Early Detection of Cichlid Disease, Precision Fertilization, and Optimization of Cichlid Oil at the Level of Farmers - Syiah Kuala University.

2nd place

Leaf-In: An AI-Driven Optical Leaf Sensing System for Multicrop Nitrogen Status Prediction and Precision Fertilizer Decision Support (Case Study: Robusta Coffee Plantations can reduce fertilizer use by up to 73 persen) - Startup - Precision Agriculture Indonesia.

3rd place

AI-Driven Agricultural Intelligence: Optimizing Harvest through Deep Learning-Based Disease Detection and Crop Quantification - Akademisi – Institut Teknologi Del.

CLIMATE RESILIENCE & SUSTAINABLE FERTILIZER CATEGORY

Champion 1

Bio-Silica: Silicon-Enriched Biochar from Red Mud for Sustainable Peatland Agriculture Supporting Food Security and Climate Change Mitigation (Academician - Tanjungpura University)

2nd place

Development of Sustainable Potassium Fertilizer from Woody Biomass Combustion Ash by Using Simple Classification Methods (Academician - International University of Semen Indonesia)

3rd place

RISHY (RICE HUSK-BASED HYBRID FERTILIZER): Hydrogel Fertilizer @ Nanosilica-Biochar

Rice Straw-Based for Drought Mitigation and Rice Productivity Improvement (Oryza Sativa). (Academician - Gadjah Mada University).

CATEGORY PROCESS & PLANT ENGINEERING

Champion 1

Intelligent Edge Node: Implementation of Adaptive Digital Twin Based on EmbeddedAI for Optimization of Supplementary Firing and Predictive Maintenance on HRSG(Academic - Gadjah Mada University).

2nd place

Integration and Optimization of Microalgae Carbon Capture Supporting the Decarbonization of the Fertilizer Industry through High Quality Carbon Credit and Green Ammonia Extraction (Startup - Aither).

3rd place

AI-Driven AITOMA: AI-Based Predictive Maintenance System to Improve the Reliability of Critical Machines in a Fertilizer Plant (Startup - Aitoma).

AI-DRIVEN AGRI SUPPLY CHAIN CATEGORIES

Champion 1

Sonic-Chain: AI-Driven Yield Forecasting and Fertilizer Supply Chain Optimization via Ultrasonic Plant Bioacoustics (Academician - Jember State Polytechnic).

2nd place

Pukpuk: CatBoost-based Smart System and Choropleth Geospatial for Production Planning Optimization and Fertilizer Stock Control (Academic - Brawijaya University).

3rd place

SmartChain Fertilizer: Blockchain-AI-based Fertilizer Traceability & Automatic Distribution Contract System to Reduce Stock Mismatch by 40% (Academician - Bandung Institute of Technology).