Pumpkin farmers, farmers of their own, will soon be able to grow their own farm food, too
Farm produce will be sold through a new online marketplace, called FarmVine, as part of an ambitious expansion of the US-based farm supply chain.
The online marketplace has been launched with a goal of creating “farmers-to-market,” a market for farmers to sell their produce online.
The new marketplace, which will be available to consumers on April 15, allows farmers to market their products on a large scale, using an algorithm to predict what the market will demand.
The goal of the FarmVines’ new platform is to democratize farm supply chains by enabling farmers to make payments directly to the consumer.
“This will give them the ability to buy the produce that they need,” Andrew Burt of the University of Missouri, Kansas City told TechCrunch.
The FarmVINE website also will allow farmers to list their produce and sell it for a flat fee.
“It’s going to allow farmers that can’t make the time to sell to just start making it,” Burt said.
“They’ll start making the farm’s own food.
It’s not like the market just comes out of nowhere.
They already have a lot of farm-to’s and farm-sides to sell.”
A FarmVining user will be able “see the price of all the produce you have in the market, and buy it,” he added.
Farmers will also be able sell to retailers, which can then sell it to consumers.
The marketplaces will allow buyers to see a summary of how much food they will be getting from the farms they sell to, Burt added.
The idea is to encourage farmers to have the flexibility to sell produce online, which is more efficient than the traditional business model of buying produce and selling it at a later date.
FarmViners will be the first farmers to use FarmViner to sell online, according to Burt.
“The idea is, what if you can sell produce directly to consumers?” he said.
As part of the new market, farmers can also sell their own produce online through FarmVini, which was built to support farmers with growing operations that don’t have direct connections to the retail industry.
“FarmVini is really designed for farmers who don’t necessarily have a retail business, who don.
They might have a small family operation that sells farm produce,” Bostrom said.
The first farmers who can sell their farm produce through Farm Vini will be a group of four farmers who are selling at least 30% of their farm’s produce to the market.
The others are hoping to sell 50% to 75% of the farm.
“We’re hoping to get to 100% by the end of the year,” Burch said.
Farm Vines is currently being tested in six states, but Burt anticipates the platform will be expanded to other states over time.
“What we are really trying to do is open up farm supply to everyone, not just the small farmer who wants to sell in the store,” he said, noting that the Farm Viners will also sell to farmers who have established farms in other states.
Burt has previously said he expects to see more than 100,000 FarmVinelli users sign up in the first year, and hopes to have an initial population of 10,000.
“There is so much demand,” he told TechBuzz.
“And people are looking for an easier way to get access to farm supplies.”