CHAPTER
ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF STUDY
Online
Farm Information Management System is a web application designed to assist
local farmers in the area of farm products management, that is, local farmers
can make their farm products get to their target customer or retailers using
this “Online Farm Information Management System as a medium of creating
awareness and also to remind the customers or retailers of any new farm
products harvested that is ready for marketing , through e-mail or SMS alert
which is one of the modules of Online Farm Information Management System. As
individuals within a society become more specialized in their economic
activities, they come to rely upon others to supply at least some of the
products and services which they need. Thus begins a process of exchange
between buyers and sellers. For a while buyers and sellers remain in immediate
contact and each party is able to determine what the other needs and values
and, therefore, will be willing to exchange. As the economy develops the number
and types of exchanges expand, there is a concomitant need for increasingly
specialized marketing services such as physical distribution, storage, grading,
and market information gathering and so. The number of participants also
increases with many of the specialized services being provided by
intermediaries between the seller and ultimate buyer. Few buyers and sellers
are in direct contact with one another and communication between them is
channeled through a complex marketing system, hence the need for an online
marketing and in this project research, an online means of marketing where a
farmer or group of peasant farmer upload their farm products to the web for
customers to see and buy with the information provided by the farmer, such as
location and when the products was harvested.
Another
important needs why I embarked on this project and which should appear in the
introductory part of this research is the idea on how to minimize agricultural
waste especially those produced by local peasant farmers, who do not have
access to effective marketing strategies.
Again,
there are some agricultural farm products especially products like vegetables,
fruits, etc. that are mostly needed on a daily basis by the final consumers and
which often get wasted in the farm or in the location where they were harvested
and kept by this poor farmers, as a result of lack of access to quick market.
The final consumers who are in need of these products may not know that such
products have been harvested and it is wasting somewhere in the farm.
Therefore, this project research will serve as an avenue of letting retailers
and consumers know that such farm products have been harvested and it is ready
for marketing.
This
project “Online Farm Information Management System” also provides such platform
where the customers or retailers can order for the products, pay online and
have the products delivered to their door steps.
In
a nutshell, this project research is concerned with how to improve local
farmers’ productivities by providing an easy way of marketing their farm products
through online customers to farm producers’ interaction.
1.2 STATEMENT
OF THE PROBLEM
·
The existing internet based solution to
agricultural products has not really focus on how subsistence farmers can use
the internet to establish a farmer to consumer (customers) relationship, where
farm products meant for market can easily be disposed, thus providing income
for the farmer and improve farm productivity.
·
Conventional or non-internet based market is
not reliable enough to let customers know when a given farm produce is ready
for the market.
·
Local farmers continue to use old and
obscure method of farming, because agricultural extension agents, that should
have introduced current method of farming, could not get to the rural area
where most of these local farmers reside.