Why are traditional marketplaces failing farmers ?
Farmers in India have traditionally been selling their produce via government operated wholesale marketplaces called APMC (Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee) Yards or Mandis. These marketplaces operate on a structure of licensed commission agents who act as traders in the marketplace, buying from farmers and middlemen and selling to wholesale buyers. One of the biggest challenges with this model has been Cartelization by commission agents to manipulate prices which results in farmers receiving unfair value for their produce. In addition, farmers are prone to facing malpractices like incorrect produce grading and tampering of measurement instruments at mandis which further affects the money they receive for their produce. Any sale which the farmer does at the mandi is also subject to marketing charges and fees which increases the farmer’s cost of sales, adding to already existing costs like transportation of farm produce to the mandi, and other production related costs. Till recently, APMC Yards or government mandis had monopoly status in most states which further led to a lack of alternatives for farmers to market their crop.
What is a Market Network ?
A Market Network is a hybrid business model comprising of a marketplace, a social network and SaaS tools. Taking some real world examples, it can be seen as a combination of Alibaba.com + Linkedin.com + Salesforce.com . In the Agri value chain a digital market network would allow all the players in the value chain to discover each other via profile pages, connect and exchange information in real time to negotiate deals and manage the transactions and workflows to complete their business.
How does Samudra Network help solve the traditional marketplace challenges ?
We are the world’s first blockchain powered Agri Market Network allowing all Agri value chain participants to discover, connect and transact with each other in a real-time, transparent and fair trade driven environment. Our focus is to work with Farmer Producer Organizations (FPO), Farm Co-operatives, Wholesale Buyers, Inputs Suppliers and other Value Added Service providers to create an ecosystem to help farmers maximise value for their crops and recieve a fair share of value from the supply chain.
By working with farmer owned FPOs and Cooperatives we ensure that farmers act as shareholders, suppliers and also customers of the ecosystem thereby gaining also from long term wealth creation as the ecosystem grows. By leveraging blockchain technology, we aim to make all network transactions transparent for all participants and allow full origin traceability of Farm Inputs and Produce across the supply chain. Combining this with fair trade business principles we ensure to deliver the deserved share of value for each player across the value chain.
We enable any local service enabler (eg. Logistics providers, Food Processors, Financial Institutions etc) to participate in the Market Network and connect with the rest of the network participants to derive and share value across the ecosystem. Once a Market Network participant signs in they can manage their profiles, market their services, connect and communicate with other network participants and initiate or complete transactions in a transparent and secure manner.
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