OLX enters deal to supply cheap fertiliser from Mavuno

OLX has announced a partnership expected to offer its appointed potato farmers a 15 per cent discount on fertilisers.

In the deal that was entered with Mavuno fertiliser manufacturing company, the farmers enrolled as producers on the eCommerce platform will receive the inputs in their respective farms.

Free deliveries will be facilitated through OLX rural delivery service currently being used to deliver farm produce to markets in the urban centres. Initial deliveries will commence in September. Peter Ndiang’ui, OLX country manager said that rural e-commerce is a great opportunity to enable farmers access markets while enabling delivery of affordable farm inputs.

“Majority of these rural traders are farmers. We as OLX are tapping into this opportunity by registering more farmers on our platform and entering into strategic partnerships that will see farmers not only sell their produce, but increase their yields through purchase of cheaper farm inputs on OLX,” said Ndiang’ui said.

Absence of an efficient and reliable distribution system of farm inputs market presents a huge business opportunity for the platform and an opportunity to lower the cost of distributing farm inputs for farmers.

More than 9,000 farmers have been registered on the OLX platform following the new agriculture category that was recently set up to eliminate middle men in the value chain.

The platform also gives the same farmers an opportunity to order farm inputs at much reduced prices than the existing channels while selling their produce. “We are revolutionising the manner in which rural traders sell, by offering convenience and adding monetary value from the increased profits they make by engaging directly with the consumers,” he added.

Already, OLX has an SMS service to target farmers without smart phones, who are now able to sell their produce by dialing short code services.