Digital farming platforms hold the key to success for SA’s emerging farmers

Successfully implemented in Kenya and in East Africa in general, these link smallholders throughout the supply and marketing chainThe limited reopening of restaurants and hospitality businesses announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa is good news for small-scale farmers, who have seen the lockdown measures decimate demand.

These sudden negative developments have forced us to review many of the previously useful lessons and strategies researchers have advocated for supporting and growing emerging farmers, especially within the land redistribution programmes in the land reform project. For many businesses, the panacea may lie in digital solutions, demonstrated in continuing research from Kenya.

While Covid-19 has challenged normal market patterns, a key lesson from smallholders in East Africa is the continued effective adoption of digital platforms for marketing and sharing of information among farmers and other role players to find alternatives. Online farmer communities with digital auction markets for their products emerged about five years ago as an innovative response to price and information abuses by brokers along the value chains, and are now well established.

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