Food cultivation requires various degrees of activities from sourcing of quality inputs, proper land preparation, planting with the appropriate spacing and methods, effective post-planting practices, proper harvesting, appropriate post-harvest handling practices and effective marketing strategy. All these activities when done in a timely and appropriate manner are essential to ensure high productivity and also influences the revenue to be generated. However, marketing has been one of the most challenging activities farmers have faced over the years that has contributed to low revenue (as it also increases postharvest losses), and the attention given to it as being minimal.
For many years, farmers are always at the mercy of middlemen to sell their produce due to limited knowledge of market outlets or inability of the farmers to source other reliable markets due to quantity produced and specific requirements that are least complied by them. In resolving this issue, farmers in some communities formed cooperative or groups where their produce is sold in bulk, which helped them to bargain better prices for their produce and provided them with adequate market information. However, this practice is still not widely accepted due to the issue of trust among their members and lack of structure to sustain the interest of the groups or cooperatives. Thus, there is a need to develop or sensitize effective and adaptive frameworks to help farmers' group/association sell produce as a wholesale or bulk and access to information to meet requirements of various market outlets in need of their produce. Asides this, farmers need to be informed properly of the modus operandi of the framework, the risks involved and mitigation tactics and the sustainability approach to ensure continuity. Therefore, the relevant agricultural stakeholders must proactively ensure that market linkages are strengthened and leveled to be accessed by the respective farmers' groups.
Improving the livelihood of farmers is key to alleviating poverty in agrarian communities and there must be deliberate efforts to ensure that farmers are empowered to become self-reliant and financially stable through access to reliable market information - to premium and reliable markets - and at the same time achieving food security that is profitable for all. Having access to credible markets and market information is a leverage point to improve productivity in primary agricultural production! Information is the new currency and knowledge acquired from it is the value.
