Idea 291 of 500. Cluster 14: Farm to shelf
A wholesale market app that shows the day's prices, so the farmer stops selling blind
The mechanism, from the book
The smallholder sells raw to a collector at the gate and the collector sells to a packer who puts his own name on it. Denmark's farmers got rich the day they owned the creamery.
Every idea in cluster 14 uses this mechanism.
A first step
Visit the nearest wholesale market at opening for 2 weeks and record the prices of 10 common vegetables each morning. Send them each day by text message to 30 farmers who agree to receive them free. At the end, ask how many changed when or where they sold, and whether they would pay a small monthly fee. Paying subscribers, or a trader wanting to advertise, is the proof.
- Who pays first
- A farmer deciding whether to sell today or tomorrow, who will pay a little each month to stop being underpaid at the gate.
- What leaves today
- Farmers sell without knowing the day's price, so the difference between the gate and the market is kept by the collector.
The idea and the mechanism are from the book. The first step was written for this site as a suggestion; if you know a better one, say so.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
The only test any idea on this site has to pass. The four rules that go with it are here.
In the book
- Ch. ElevenThe Mechanisms
Denmark's co-operative dairies and the binding contract that held them
More from cluster 14
- 271A farmers' co-operative dairy in the hill country selling cheese and yoghurt under its own brand
- 272Buffalo-milk mozzarella and ghee for the hotels and for export
- 273Fruit and vegetable drying: mango, pineapple, papaya, jackfruit and okra as premium snacks and soup mixes for Europe and the Gulf
- 274Frozen tropical fruit pulp for the smoothie chains of the world
- 275Heritage rice varieties grown under contract and sold at ten times the commodity price
- 276Organic certification services for smallholder groups, shared so the cost is bearable
Idea 291 of the 500 in the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? Every one can be started by one person, one family or one small firm.