Post-harvest losses account for 30 to 40% of food wastage in Ghana, according to the Ministry of Food and Agriculture.
The weak connection between farmers and buyers has largely been blamed for this situation. Fortunately, a mobile and web application seeks to solve that challenge. The Kuafo MarketPlace, has been developed by the Institute for Scientific and Technological Information of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR-INSTI).
Kuafo is an online platform for farmers, agro-input shops and marketers to sell their goods and services. There are two versions; an online version and a mobile app which is available on Google Playstore.
MAG programme
The App developed through the Modernizing Agriculture in Ghana (MAG) programme, is meant to prevent fraud and establish trackability. A user should be a member of a registered Farmer-Based Organization (FBO) or be verified by the platform managers to be able to advertise on the platform.
The application also has a feature which enables prospective buyers to directly contact the seller of any commodity before any transaction can be agreed upon. The main aim of this deliverable was to find out how research work impacts economically.
CSIR-INSTI is known to be the clearing house for all research works. This portal is meant to showcase all CSIR Technologies to the international community. The Kuafo Market Place is one of the four deliverables which were developed based on output requirements which emerged from various meetings and visits with and to stakeholders, as well as various groups within the agriculture value-chain.
