DON’T DO THIS IF YOU DON’T WANT TO MAKE $ MILLIONS BY BRINGING PROSPERITY TO SMALLHOLDERS

by DR. NIMROD

Each farmer is a business owner. Smallholders are like SMEs

Twenty-eight years ago, in 1994, I said that we needed an effective spray-less crop protection solution, starting with fruit flies. Experts and investors laughed at me, wondering why we need it when everything is excellent with crop protection sprays.

As we know, current public demand strongly favors fresh produce free of sprays, even if the spray is “Eco-friendly” or “Organic.” Nowadays, sprays are undesired.

Today, thanks to Biofeed’s fruit fly solutions, growing fruits without sprays, any sprays, is doable. The farmers of Senegal produced over 10,000 tons of mangos free of sprays from Dream Valley project areas.

Growing without sprays and bio-security issues is a good starting point that should be followed by complementary activities that would exploit the business opportunity for the benefit of all.

Hence, A Dedicated Tailor-Made Trading Platform for stallholders is the next BIG BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY.

THE BUSINESS CASE

Amazon’s revenue in 2021 reached $469.822B, representing an increase (also due to COVID) of 21.6% versus 2020. Hence, “As of February 2022, Amazon has a market cap of $1.553 Trillion.”

Not too bad for a company that in 2004 started by trading with gooks for a minimal margin. Amazon is well established not because of working with big companies, but quite the contrary, thanks to working with millions of SMEs.

Trading companies energized the birth and growth of millions of SMEs worldwide.

Amazon is not the only successful trading platform; there are other successful platforms.

Trading platforms bring prosperity, mainly to SMEs, which before were denied access to major markets.

A business based on many small customers is stable and more robust than a few large customers in the long run.

We should celebrate and embrace that trading platforms are a source of prosperity to millions of SMEs and billions of consumers.

In fact, those trading platforms became the economic engine to the rapid growth of numerous industries and countries.

Can you imagine what would happen to the Chinese economy without trading platforms and the production of millions of items with very competitive terms of price and delivery?

Amazon and other platforms owe their business success to 213 million businesses worldwide, which part of them use those platforms as channels to sell their goods.

WHO IS MISSING?

Everybody can sell everything on trading platforms!? NO! Not everybody; farmers who sell fresh perishable produce are excluded. Farmers can’t trade their fresh produce on Amazon.

Farmers, mainly smallholders, can’t benefit from the abundance of trading platforms because they need a dedicated, tailor-made trading platform.

Today, even so-called “dedicated” trading platforms for farmers are suitable only for relatively strong farmers who can produce high quality and quantity or control the market.

Unfortunately, that does not include most of the 500 million (!) smallholders, still excluded from using those platforms.

Furthermore, if those “dedicated” platforms were as good as they promise to be, we would expect to see farmers increasing their income by tens and even hundreds of percent, as happened to SMEs that use Amazon, Alibaba, eBay, etc.

Business-wise, we would expect to see those “dedicated agricultural platforms” doing better than it is in real life, as we know it. Being a form of SME, farmers should be doing better as well. Unfortunately, that too doesn’t happen.

COPYING IS NOT THE SOLUTION

Amazon’s market cap is over $ 1.5T because they focus on a target group and make sure to help them sell and buy a wide variety of goods in the most convenient and cost-effective possible manner.

For example, Amazon sees every bookstore as a business and every book as a potential source of profit.

Many entrepreneurs see the considerable business success of trading platforms, such as Amazon, and recognize the agro sector’s need and business gap.

Whether it is because of lack of deep understanding of the agro-sector, laziness, or other reasons, existing trading platforms “dedicated” to farmers marketing perishable fresh produce are almost copy-paste of the platforms for trading with “ordinary” goods. Therefore, they are not suitable.

Is trading and shipping books and sunglasses similar to shipping fresh fruits, e.g., mangos?

The concept of trading platforms is valid for big producers and established agro-businesses. However, smallholders require a very different set of services than that Amazon provides to its clients.

Like always, the secret is in the perception. If you change your perception of smallholders, you would see that every farmer is a business and every mango, avocado, tomato, or other fresh produce, is a potential source of profit.

If you are not arrogant, you will listen carefully to smallholders, as they are your business partners, clients of your services, and the suppliers of the produce you would market.

When you would understand the services smallholders need, as good as Amazon understands its clients’ needs, you would have 500 million smallholders that gladly would market their produce through your platform AND would bring you a handsome revenue flow.

Don’t worry; you don’t need to work with all of them. Focus on a specific segment and introduce a method/approach/concept/solution HOW to act and gain revenue, you would enjoy prosperity, as they would too.

WE FOCUS

There are so many farmers, market segments, and opportunities that no one can do all.

Hence, the Dream Valley trading platform focuses on sourcing mangos from emerging economies’ smallholders. In the future, Dream Valley would expand its offering also to farmers growing other high-value crops, e.g., avocados and citrus.

For now, mango growers and the mango industry serve as “a model crop” for the Dream Valley business model.

Dream Valley’s goal is simple; cooperate with farmers to market their mangos in better markets by reducing their challenges.

Dream Valley operating platform is ready “to do nearly anything” to facilitate the export of high-quality mangos from smallholders to premium markets.Dream Valley is a business-oriented organization that looks at its activity with a vision and long-term perspective.We are looking to do a very profitable business with high social awareness while improving the lives of millions.This is not a contradiction but rather the right way of helping any individual to build its business, including smallholders.In Israel, many farmers buy and pay in advance (money in the bank) for Biofeed’s crop protection solutions three years in advance.Why? Because they appreciate and trust Biofeed, and they see their relations with Biofeed in a long-term beneficial perspective. Hence, they want to ensure that Biofeed will continue to provide them with the solutions they enjoy, value, and need in the coming years.Dream Valley follows a path of building long-term relationships based on respect, trust, and mutual goals.Under the Dream Valley program, Senegalese mango growers were the only ones to harvest the fruit at any time, including during the rainy season, free of sprays and infestation.Farmers increased their income by 50% to 500%, while Dream Valley completed one more step in creating a new fruit quality category – Fresh, Tasty, Zero Sprays, and Zero bio-security hazards.In 2022, the top UN SDG challenges are fighting hunger and increasing health and well-being.By helping smallholders in emerging economies to increase their income, Dream Valley is actively advancing SDGs #1 and #2. By assisting farmers to market fruits free of sprays/chemicals, Dream Valley advanced SDG #3 (and a few more).Regardless of your goal, to increase smallholders’ income or that of yourself, investing in a tailor-made dedicated trading platform for smallholders is your best choice.

TAKEAWAYS» FARMERS are business owners.» SMALLHOLDERS are owners of SMEs.» TRADING PLATFORMS holds the most significant business opportunity for the agro-industry.» SMALLHOLDERS require a tailor-made dedicated trading platform.

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