One reason why smallholders remain poor in Africa, is the lack of transparency about the market price of food. As smallholders do not know the market price, middle men have a lot of power and push the price down. Several options exist to overcome the middlemen's power. In Ethiopia for example, real time screens in major market towns show the current market price of most agricultural products. This week, i found another interesting option, that has been implemented by a young Kenyan smallholder : a website to share information but also create a virtual market place to connect smallholders directly to each other for agricultural input and to consumers for agricultural output. Like in Europe, some farmers decided to develop short supply chains to avoid the middle man. A great initiative, check it out yourself : http://www.mkulimayoung.com/
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