The launch of the platform was announced in Ibadan, Oyo State, at a press conference addressed by the Chief Operating Officer, Mr Gbenga Odemuyiwa and Chief Finance Officer, Alhaji Tajudeen Olatunji.
At the event, the executives of onifarm.com, a subsidiary of Onifarm Global Limited, explained that the purpose of the initiative was to remove all encumbrances and provide farmers with the enabling environment to reap the fruits of their labour.
The idea, Odemuyiwa and Olatunji said, was to insulate farmers from unfair dealings from middlemen and give them the opportunity to maximise their profits through direct engagement with end users of their produce.
“Onifarm gives the necessary support to sellers to offer their agricultural products for sale and provides buyers with access to a wide range of bulk agricultural products.
“It is a purchase/sales system whereby sellers display their products with specific prices and other necessary information for ease of calculation and decision by the buyers. There is a series of advantages that come with the establishment of Onifarm.com. It gives farmers direct access and freedom to fix appropriate prices, most suitable for them to ensure their profitability,” Odemuyiwa said.
According to him, with onifarm.com, buyers and sellers have a platform to meet and negotiate on products without the intervention of any middlemen.
“We ensure that buyers and sellers have a successful trading experience. We have taken adequate measures to ensure that no party is swindled at the end of the day.
“Our primary objective is to improve the living standard of our farmers through increased production, to give them a larger customer base across the globe and get them higher returns on their investments.
“We want a situation where farmers get value for their produce directly from the end users and we are going to achieve this by eliminating the impact of middlemen; the farmers will have the bulk of the profit directly in their pockets,” he added.
The Chief Finance Officer, Alhaji Olatunji, described onifarm.com as a place where farmers, wherever they are in the world, can be reached and where they can reach out to others to carry out transactions on agricultural and agro-allied products and equipment.
“With Nigeria having one of the highest numbers of smart phone users across the world, we are sure of the sustainability of this initiative. We have the capability. We have the technical know-how, plus, we are farmers. We know what it is that the farmers are facing and we are working round the clock to solve these problems,” Olatunji said.
and then