A free online trading platform for agriculture in East Africa, Ninayo.com has partnered with Heifer International to give Tanzanian farmers access to information that will enable them to sell their produce at favorable prices in the market.
Ninayo is a digital trading platform that allows farmers to post their harvests online and be seen by buyers nationwide. They can also check prices of various produce in different parts of the country to determine what to plant the following season. The online platform addresses three major key issues: supply visibility where buyers don’t know what crops farmers are selling, lack of demand visibility where farmers don’t know how much buyers are willing to pay, and lastly the lack of logistical coordination between the farmers and the buyers as locations are provided.
“Thanks to increased internet and mobile access, the innovations that have revolutionized every other sector in the world, from taxis, hotels and more, can now be attained by farmers in the Tanzanian markets so that food supply reaches demand at fair prices for all, and waste is minimized,” Ninayo’s founder and CEO Jack Langworthy said.
He said 80 percent of Tanzania’s work force are independent farmers who have little bargaining power over the sale of their crops due to poor infrastructure and a lack of communication with food processors (markets) hence the introduction of the online platform to the farmers.
“Ninayo will ultimately link farmers to more directly to markets, bringing consistency to trade in maize, beans, bananas, mangoes, watermelons and other agricultural products to facilitate market transparency and price discovery” he said. “There no more dalalis, everyone can be a dalali, price information is now democratized- and free.”
He further explained that Ninayo has so far connected over 20,000 farmers in Iringa, Mbeya, Morogoro and Njombe regions directly with traders, something that has helped them increase their income.
He added that Ninayo also connects farmers who do not have internet through its SMS option.
Meanwhile, the Country Director for Heifer International Tanzania Ms. Leticia Mpuya lauded the online platform adding that, it has the potential to match buyers with sellers across Tanzania as well as East Africa.
The partnership between Heifer is in terms of educating the farmers on how Ninayo works and its benefits to the various farmers that they work with. Heifer who work with thousands of farmers in different parts of Tanzania, will enable these farmers to use the Ninayo platform to their advantage and to ensure that they get better prices for their produce.
“As a global nonprofit that focuses on eradicating poverty and hunger, we face so many challenges in ensuring that our farmers sell their produce at the right price and to the right buyers and this tool provides us with that solution”, she said.
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