The agricultural sector in Nigeria has always faced a problem which centred around getting products to the hands of consumers. This is especially on the little scale and mid-scale farmers in the country. They do not deal directly with their customers. Well, that is about to end soon with the launch of Farmnga.
Farmnga is an online farmer marketplace founded late last year in Nigeria, and the startup is expected to use technology to address these farmer’s problems. Farmnga hopes to be the country’s OLX whose a main headache would be connecting farmers to agricultural dealers and buyers in Nigeria through their online platform.
The startup was founded by Arthur Johnson Nwokolo, Akogun Oluwatimilehin, Stanley Aniobi and just like OLX, Farmnga gives a platform to farmers and agribusiness dealers to sell their wares to the public and other dealers at prices they agree on. As a typical marketplace, the online platform allows the farmers and traders to connect to a much wider audience than they have before now.
Well, I have a feeling you might think OLX poses as a competition for this marketplace, but it should be clear that while Farmnga is a niche platform focused on agriculture, OLX is an all round platform which is hardly used for perishable products, but electronics and the likes.
Since their launch, Farmnga has struggled to sign up users, maybe because their publicity and marketing to farmers seem destitute, and those that have signed up get no return on their investments. This requires two different forms of advertisement to be embarked upon by Farmnga, to the farmers, and to the customers. Presently, they have to convince customers on why they should use the platform to the traditional physical market.
On how they would, or are raising money, their business model is by advertising model and offering premium services to farmers and agricultural dealers on the platform. With the right number of active users, I believe this is capable of sustaining the business.
My thoughts on Farmnga?
The thing here is Agriculture is a very integral part of our country, and this startup has the potential to be one of the biggest marketplaces to shop for agricultural products online. But then, it seems like they are focusing on the wrong aspect of things.
Farmnga is seen to be more focused on solving farmers’ problems by giving them easy access to consumers, which is great, but what I think they should do next is try to convince the consumers and give reasons why their platform should be patronised. There is no need for the farmers to list goods if no consumer would buy. They could do this by encouraging farmers to give discounts and juxtapose price with the conventional market, making theirs a bit cheaper.
What are your thoughts on this farmers and consumers marketplace? Let’s hear you.
