App links buyers to producers
CALATA Corporation, a public listed agriculture company, launched Krops, a mobile application now available through Google Play, which helps farmers find buyers and buyers find producers.
Krops will be made available through Apple Store later.
“We have some 100 farmers who downloaded the app since we made it available late September,” Joseph H. Calata, chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Calata Corp., said Friday at the sidelines of the Mentor Me Program launching of Philippine Center for Entrepreneurship, Inc. – Go Negosyo and Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) in Marco Polo Hotel, Davao City.
Most of the first 100 farmers who downloaded the app are from Bulacan and Luzon area.
Calata said that they invested around P10 million for the development
of the app. The app was developed for about a year.
Krops, involved in the establishment of a chain of agricultural supply stores across the country will assist the farmer or the buyer of the farmers' products access to information on who is buying, who is selling, how much, and the location of the buyer or the seller.
“We developed this, to connect all the players in the value chain, like a market place. With Krops, we gave farmers and buyers more options,” Calata said adding that the usual farmers’ problem of not knowing where are their potential buyers led them to settle on one buyer who usually buys their produce in a lower price causing farmers to earn less.
He explained that the app enables users to choose and identify themselves either a buyer or a seller. Upon opening the “Krops" app, it will immediately ask the user: "Buying?" or "Selling?". When one pressed "Selling," the location of the buyers near the location of the "farmer" will be immediately shown on the screen including the complete address, the volume required and the buying price.
Also, the user can sort prices from the least to the most expensive prevailing price on agri products.
Asked on how it works, Calata said, the company will manage the whole transactions without charges.
Last August, Agriculture secretary, Emmanuel “Manny” Piñol endorsed the app along with another app dubbed as ‘FarmHelp’ believing that these two major innovations “could revolutionize Philippine agriculture.”
“For the Krops, this is the perfect answer to the problem bedeviling the Filipino agricultural producer who has always been at the mercy of the middlemen and the traders," Piñol earlier said.