On-line marketing of horticultural produce ("A Hope" for a Kenyan small-scale farmer)

Abstract

The aim of the project was to study the various marketing methods (situations) employed by small-scale Horticultural farmers with a view to making it online, in order to improve and increase the returns for their produce by widening their market base. "Small-scale farmers" in this project are those farmers growing horticultural produce on pieces of land that are less than 10 acres. This is achieved by providing a web based system that will attract customers worldwide where Internet services can be accessed, hence widen the market for the produce and eliminate the exploitative middlemen commonly referred to as "Brokers". The areas covered by this project include the study of the various marketing methods employed by the small-scale farmers (investigation), analyses, designing and finally implementation of the proposed online marketing method. Various tools and techniques were employed to achieve this goal.