Farmers Can Use Mobile Phones to Find Markets

Producing great products is core but not ultimate until selling falls into place at the right price. There will always be market plus demand for whatever product and it’s knowledge of the best market and burning demand that makes the difference. Perhaps the simplest yet powerful tool at the disposal of farmers right now is the mobile phone. The same way they can communicate with relatives and friends miles away can be used to also communicate with markets that can offer best prices for their produce.

Using the mobile phone to find out where farmers’ products are on high demand will indeed transform the way farmers choose where to sell their produce. Using the same gadgets to enable markets discover rich sources of their needs will be a great breakthrough in business. It implies that big entities like hotels can source food materials directly from farmers at the grassroots to supplement the regular. The farmer has always suffered humiliation of working hard for meager returns while their goods bring in good returns for middlemen.

Such middlemen will not be impressed by technologies that are likely to cut down their earnings which makes this debate least amusing to any agriculture-based middleman. But this is where we have to begin because  it discourages  a farmer to sweat and produce a sack of maize, sell it at kshs 800 for example to a ‘liar trader’ who will sell at kshs 2400(Triple the price!). This price is already expensive to the buyer who in this case can be an institution or a business entity. Suppose the farmer had the ability to sell directly at 1400? The buyer will smile while giving the farmer a decent meal, clothing and fertilizer for the next planting season.

Market inequalities and dishonest ways of selling goods and services can be eliminated by the mobile phone. A database of current markets demanding certain products maintained and supplied to farmers. Another for sources of farm produce in different regions at various seasons will serve to rescue unsuspecting buyers from exorbitant prices that are largely determined by those who have information they will not let go!

The information will then be sent at the request of both sellers and buyers at a small fee like kshs 10 per request and trust me the returns on this cost will be tremendous. Telecommunication companies can work with media houses to provide this innovation; to provide market information for producers and consumers especially for farm products. Achieving this will bring into play fair markets and subsequent empowerment of farmers. They remain cheated and forever have worked hard in vain.