Opinion - The role of e-commerce in Ghana’s agricultural development

One of the basic necessities of life is food. Humans eat to survive and stay healthy. Although food is not the only facet of agriculture, it represents a large proportion of what the sector is about. In recent times, e-commerce has proven to be one of the main drivers of the Ghanaian economy and its impact in many sectors cannot be overlooked.

In agriculture today, e-commerce plays a vital role and in many countries all over the world, the benefits are evident for all to see. Jumia, Africa’s leading e-commerce website takes a look at how e-commerce can impact agricultural development in Ghana.

Over the years, Ghanaian farmers have adopted many technologies in their pursuit of greater yield with the belief that bigger is better.

However, the lack of advanced tools and technology has rendered them stagnant with relatively small room for improvement. With e-commerce, there is hope in the Ghanaian agric sector with the introduction of a few innovations.

First of all, e-commerce has made it possible to have an innovative user-friendly mobile and web-based system for management of records and communicating with actors in the agriculture sector. The benefits of this are better operations and practices which result in significant jump in crop yield. The internet and other e-commerce platforms makes it possible to train, educate and monitor the activities of farmers as well as actors in the sector.

The major boost that e-commerce gives to Ghana’s agric industry has to do with sales and marketing. Traditionally, farmers would have had to take their produce to the market or travel long distances to trade.

Today, with just a few clicks of a button or a few touches on a smartphone, key actors can do business without having to travel long distances. The internet has also given birth to lots of research which opens the way for massive improvement.

Farmers now know better and marketers are doing ever so well. Finally, e-commerce gives farmers access to supplements and inputs that make the running of their farming business very effective. The purchase of pesticides, weedicides and other agrochemicals were restricted to physical shops and specialists.With e-commerce, farmers can now shop for all these online and know how to use them by getting instruction videos and manuals online.

For all actors and players in the agricultural industry, e-commerce couldn’t have come at a perfect time. What is production without sales? It’s time to learn more and adopt the best practices while we found a more efficient way of marketing and selling. With e-commerce, there is great potential for agriculture in Ghana to develop.