Country of Origin: Indonesia
Year Established: 2011
Products: Organic rice
‘Rice’ up for small farmers.
Sunria was established to make a difference to the lives of humans, animals, and plants. Its award-winning organic fair trade products aim at nurturing consumers’ health while helping Indonesian small-scale farmers to have a better livelihood and preserving environmental sustainability.
It all began as a social project undertook by the founder, Emily Susanto soon after a family friend told her about the situation and the struggles of organic rice farmers in Indonesia. It was a disheartening story in which rice farmers are deprived by ‘tengkulak’, or loan sharks middle men traders, causing them to be trapped in poverty cycles for decades.
The founding social enterprise of Sunria organises and trains rice farmers until they achieved international organic and fair trade certification— it’s first for Indonesia. The enterprise believes that it is important to pave the way to build a more sustainable environment, and protect basic human rights.
With the collective efforts between the enterprise and rice farmers, they revolutionized the rice chain through empowerment, so rice farmers are no longer undervalued, but rather, producers of high-quality finished product they can be proud of.
Sunria means “sun” and “joy” (ria means joy in Indonesian). Sunria was created to bring sunshine and smiles to the lives that are changed through its actions. Sunria has just planted the seedling of change. With nurturance and care, with hopes that these seedlings will contribute to a better future for all of us.
