For smallholder farmers, the importance of market access cannot be overemphasised. For them, access to reliable markets means a boost in productivity, income and food security. Market access greatly contributes to a reduction in poverty and hunger in communities whose primary source of income is agriculture.

In many rural agricultural communities across Africa, you find numerous incidences of food wastage because they are unable to sell their goods due to their proximity to established markets, high cost of transportation, limited knowledge, limited business skills and lack of bargaining power. Despite these challenges, many smallholder farmers try their best to connect with consumers and often times at a high cost to themselves just to ensure that they make ends meet.

As demand for high-value products continues to grow, it is important for smallholder farmers to be empowered and supported to be able to meet quality standards and gain access to reliable markets. For buyers, it is not often easy for them to get access to these farmers due to their location, which is why it is also important that farmers are able to access solutions that can enable them to connect with consumers outside of their communities.

To bridge these gaps, Coamana was founded. In the last 5 years, we have been able to create and deploy various solutions that have served to provide access to markets to smallholder farmers as well as elevate the markets within their communities.

We aim for greater impact as we continue to grow, build partnerships and improve our solutions, and we remain committed to strengthening market linkages.