 Hello to everybody watching the farming podcast brought to you by Private Property. My name is Mbali Nwaka, as always, your host every Tuesdays and Thursdays at 8pm, right here on the Private Property Channel. Thank you so much for joining us, whether you're on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. Thank you for constantly supporting the farming podcast. And today, I've got a fantastic guest who's going to tell us about his agricultural marketplace called Farm Direct South Africa. If you're a farmer and you're looking to get your farm listed onto this platform, get your products out to as many people as possible. I believe this is one such platform that could really propel your business and put it in the forefront of many consumers out there. And so if you have any questions for our guests this evening, please feel free to comment. We're happy to answer your questions live onto the show and continue to like, share and comment as you please. And let us know we all thoughts on the farming podcast and on our discussion this evening. So tonight I'm joined by Yaku Bartonost, who is the founder of Farm Direct, is saying he's going to tell us about his business and what exactly the platform does. Yaku, thank you so much for joining us this evening. How are you doing? I'm well and you Mbali. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure being on your show. It's a real privilege. Thank you. Thank you, Yaku. You know, I follow a farm director essay on Instagram and I've just been curious about what the platform is about. But before we dive deeper into it, just tell us who you are and how you came about starting Farm Director essay. Mbali, I'm a I'm a boy from the Southern Cape. I grew up on our family farm, Jubilee Scroll down twenty five guys from Swell and Dan. And I've always had a very big love for solving problems, but also for agriculture and tourism and things like that. So I'm very involved in tourism and other projects. So I own a resort on our family farm called Kambati River Resort. And then we also do Una Group, which is a group of tourism properties and restaurants and stuff in the area. And then, yeah, and then this whole project came about as a dream last year when the old covid pandemic struck and we didn't have any guests at the resort. And and I said, I must do something with my time. I can't just sit and wait for this thing to turn around. So, yes, I started making a huge vegetable garden on the farm. And I actually loved it. It's my brother handles all our farming enterprises and the farming side of the business. So I started my own vegetable garden and I thought, well, if this thing turns around, I can at least get the guests to go into the vegetable garden with their kids and pick some vegetables and teach them where their food really comes from. Because most of our guests is from Cape Town and from the cities. So I don't really know exactly how their food is grown and where it's produced and and all that stuff. So so it started as a dream last year and and it's in its game actually very well. I'm married to Dean and we've got two kids, daughter, Linka, which is six and a boy, Jan Rose, four years old and all involved in the business. Yeah. So tourism, vegetable garden, covid and what for direct essay? Yeah. And then I started seeing there's a huge gap. If you not a gap, but I think there wasn't really a platform for for farmers to connect directly with consumers. There's a lot of groups and there's a lot of market places on on on platforms that I can't mention now. But there's nothing specific that's that's really aimed at the farmer and and therefore the right reason. So so then I started this whole idea. The idea I came in contact with someone at Lampo Virgplatz who saw the idea on my Facebook page. And he put me in touch with my with my partner today, Mr. Elmett Druze, who is involved at Acresta, which is a tech company based in Germany. He stays in Cape Town, but his company is based in Germany. And and they they specialize in things like this. And and he loved the idea. We we came we came about the idea last year, March. And I saw him. I think it was in the beginning of April. And when I pitched idea to it was like we both had the same dream. So so he was the perfect they were the perfect company to partner up with Acresta. They are very, very well known in that space. And and then we started building this whole thing. As you as you might know, all these tech projects is all dreams. But it takes a lot of capital and a lot of effort to get it off the ground. So it took a bit of time to get the platform up and running. We started building, like I said, last year, April. And and then I started placing out the dream. How I would love to see it. I think there's nowhere else that I also saw that that you get a platform of a database of farmers in South Africa. They might be one of the other that I've missed. I'm not sure. But I haven't seen anything similar as a database of farmers in South Africa. So what makes our platform a bit unique is that if a farmer goes on, he has to go on to the map of South Africa. It's all in our system. And then he zooms in till he finds these borders of his form. So all the forms in South Africa is on our system. And then he actually claims his form. So then we can connect the story and the farmer and the social profile, everything to the specific form or forms, which is a very nice tool in our old setup that we have. So firstly, it's a database of farmers around South Africa. We empower farmers to tell, firstly, tell their stories, share their challenges, everyday challenges on the farm. And then we help them to market the projects of the platform. So the website is called farmdirect.africa. We started off as farmdirectSA.ca. But we we made our visions and horizons a bit broader. And we really would love to take this whole platform into the rest of Africa and to empower more farmers to connect directly with consumers. We feel that the platform is ideal for making food production a bit more sustainable in Africa and not being harsh against the middleman's. But to cut a little bit of the middleman's out in terms of the farming projects going directly to consumers and putting a little bit more money into the farmer's pocket itself. If I can call it that. So so so it's a big dream and and it's actually it's going well at the moment. Right. So if I understand correctly, you mentioned that farmers can go on to the platform and list their farm. Tell a bit about their story and their products. And, you know, the platform, if I understand correctly, it's supposed to be the number one platform or the top of mind platform, rather, for consumers to buy directly from farmers. Is that correct? You are 100 percent correct. So so firstly, a farmer will go on to our website, farmdirect.africa. He will register himself, put a little bit of his story on Clammy's farm, all of that. We contact the farmers then and we we just color in if I can call it that their profiles and make it look nice. And and their next step is to load a delivery profile. So we get a lot of farmers that already tells us OK, he farms in Khrafernet or in Ladysmith or wherever. And he already delivers to Cape Town once a month, or he delivers down to George every two weeks or whatever. So we load a delivery profile for each farmer so that when a consumer in that area that the farmer chose goes on to the system, they will get an option for free delivery by farmer. So that's that's that's another tech issue that we are not an issue, but a tech challenge that we are to develop in the system to make it work. The main objective of the platform is as we really want to stay true to our name as Farm Direct and not become another middleman. So so we had to really go back every day or five and go back to the drawing board and see if we've become a middleman. And and the way we're doing that at the moment is we've decided we're not putting any commission on to produce sales. We only charge the farmer a small fee to be on the platform per month. And he can load as many products as he's want to. He can use it as his own little online shop. And we will help him to market his produce directly to the consumer. So so yeah, so we don't want to be a middleman. We don't want to become too involved in the logistics, although we are looking at rolling out a premium auction at the end of the year. We will will partner with someone who will assist us in in getting the logistics sorted with farmers and getting them closer to the markets that that they've got the most sales in. So yeah, so it's going very well at the moment. Right. And with the consumers, they would go directly into Farm Direct and they would procure directly from the farmer. So I suppose that there will be a bouquet of various farms and products. And then if the consumer wants beef, for example, they click on the beef item and then they'll buy directly from that farm. And then how does it work in the back end? Does the farmer get an alert that somebody's buying beef from their farm and then they have to deliver? And then you do not enter into any, like you say, you're trying not to be the middleman, right? So does a consumer purchase directly online or they just come from within the farmer's sense and invoice and, you know, that. So so what we've done, Bolly, is to implement a payment system. One of the well-known payment systems on the website. So a consumer will go on and he will be purchased directly from a farmer, but he will put his card details in and do a payment. The payment will go into the Farm Direct account. And then the farmer will receive an email to tell you, like you just said, to tell him that someone has bought a product from him and he needs to get his product ready. So we want the farmers to use the system as their own. So they go onto the system, they log into their profile. They'll see the buyer's name is Mr. X, Y, Z with his address and his cell phone number. And then the magic happens. So then the farmer contacts the consumer directly and tells him, thank you for his order. And then he starts getting his product ready for shipment. As soon as it's ready for shipment, he will he will he will mark it on our system. So there will be an automated message going up to the consumer to tell them that their products are on their way. And as soon as the consumer takes the delivery of the products, we pay the farmer. So, you know, so the farmer invoices us and we pay the farmer directly. We don't take any commission on the cell, but it's just so that we can use one payment system in the middle on the on the platform and and to get the farmers to connect directly with them. What's interesting on our website on the on the homepage at the bottom, you'll see, there's a icon that says Lester Farmer. So anybody can go on there. It's a nice thing to do. Go on there. And you can scroll through the farmers on the system. We've got farmers across South Africa. We've got I think tonight I've just looked. I think we've got 192 farmers on the system. One or two of the profiles is not active because they don't have all their stuff on at the moment. But 192 farmers across South Africa. And I think we in the region of about 450 products at the moment. So any product that comes from a farm, as long as it's from a farm, can be can be put on the on the platform. Yeah. And then so it's. Apologies, you can continue, Jagger. No, no, no, no, no. Oh, OK. So yeah. So it's a year a year since we started trading and we've just gone over the benchmark of a thousand shopping cards. So yeah, so it's been a it's been a very interesting year and a very, very nice year to be involved in in online marketplaces, especially in the agricultural trade. Yeah, because I was going to be my follow up question to say, you know, having started having reached what almost a year now, you know, how is the platform grown? How is the platform grown from having farmers listed, products traded? Maybe other insights, rather, to also pick up to say, what type of commodities are people shopping for and buying, especially during this time? You know, yeah, is it beef? Is it vegetables? You know, what are the consumers mostly buying at the stage? Bollywood, what happened the past year? We started listing and we had to really dig deep to get farmers to register and to trust the platform in the beginning. And and, yeah, and then farmers started listing individual products and we still want them to do that. But what we've seen the past two to three months is that farm boxes are doing very well. So you will get, for example, the farmer in and down in the Kuru called Tukuru and they farm with meat. And what they've done is they put together a bribe box, so a box from their Tukuru farm called a bribe box. And in this box, you will get different cuts of meat from their farm. That's done very well. We've got a Wagyu farmer on there called Zune Wagyu, which is very popular in South Africa at the moment. And he's also got a Wagyu starter box. So so also very nice. But at the end of the day, what we've seen is that boxes are doing well. So it's a bit of that little bit of a food adventure if you're staying in a metro in a city area and you order directly from a farmer. He delivers this very nicely packaged box to your door with all the goodies from his farm. So that's done really well. And the nice thing about a box, it takes a little bit of the delivery costs away because normally we we try to get the farmers to pack their boxes in the 500 to 1000 grand range so that it's not too expensive. It's still affordable. It's definitely cheaper to buy online and directly from farmers. But we also keep it as a free market system. So we we try to educate the farmers on what they should charge for their produce, but we don't limit them. I don't want to tell a farmer he should charge X, Y, Z for his tomatoes or for his meat. So it's still a free market system. And the ones that's priced correctly will do their own selves. So for any farmers that are watching this podcast this evening and are thinking, you know, they heard you say the farmers enlist their products and their farms onto your website or the platform. And there's a small fee that's that's charged there specifically for marketing. How does a marketing element work? I mean, I've seen that on Instagram, you know, you've recently reached like 7000 followers. That is amazing. So how do you pick and choose which farm or farmers products to market or to post? It's not it's not always easy. You are right. It's not always easy. We try to keep a balance in the farmer and we try to keep a balance in the produce that we market. We know which ones does very nice sales because of their products that's nicely packaged first of all. And we try to not just just educate, but we try to give them branding tips in terms of how to build their farming brand and to become one of the top sellers on the platform. But it is it is not it's not easy to choose the farmers. The platform is growing daily. So we're getting farmers onto the system daily and something which is very interesting and very nice is that a lot of farmers have got their own brand and branding and logo and they haven't really thought of given too much thought about the selling side on on farm projects. They they know how to farm for sure. They know how to buy and they know how to produce very well. But sometimes they they take the first best option in terms of selling. And that's that's been the interesting part in building this platform. Our farmers have come back to the platform for the third time to change their story on their profile. So they've started thinking about all of this and they started thinking about what what what what's this story and why do they do what they do and why do they love what they do. And that's really what's what's catching the consumers. The consumers love reading about the farmers and who they are and where they form and and seeing how they've they've really thought about the production of their produce in the agri landscape. So which is a very nice thing. Yeah. And I see in earlier on you mentioned that you've changed the platform from.co.zere from.co.zere to.Africa. Are there any correct farmers across or outside South African borders that have enlisted their products on the platform? And is there any cross selling, you know, from country to country? Boli, not yet, but we've had we've had quite a few farmers from Africa contact us, Tanzania, Ghana, Namibia, Zimbabwe. Farmers that want to get involved and they want to do similar things. At the moment, we still we still trying to get our feet in terms of the rest of Africa in terms of currencies and all that stuff. But I don't think there's any reason that should stop us from not going into the rest of Africa and our name is all about that. And I think there's a huge market in Africa for connecting consumers directly to farmers. Even a bigger market, maybe in Africa than in South Africa, which is a more developed country, some senses. So yes, our dream is to really go into Africa and to roll it out and to see what we can do with it. But there's a lot of there's a lot of interest from the rest of Africa in terms of of this platform and the way it's been done. This is amazing, like I'm constantly smiling. Thank you. Oh, thank you. It's just such a new a new platform that is close to 200 farmers enlisted, you know, on the platform. And I mean, I think as farmers, we always need various or alternative ways of selling our produce, you know, then traditional markets of selling produce, you know, whether that's retail to the first produce markets, suit processes, you know, and so forth. And so I think this is such a fantastic initiative. Did you think it would grow this fast, this quick? No, definitely not. No, definitely not. But we've also realized that the sky is the limit and there's so many farmers in South Africa. And I should anybody know what stock you have on your farm? I don't think there's any other platform that you list your stock on and public can go on there and see that you've got 100 tons of barley or you've got 200 chickens or you've got two tons of butternuts. So I think that's the that was the that was the one thing that also triggered our minds. But the sky is the limit. And we really want to do so. There's quite a few nice dreams that we're also working on in terms of buying better for farmers. But that's a that's a little bit down the line to see how we can how we can assist farmers to buy in better ways and combining volumes and doing clever buying tactics. But like I said, that's a little bit down the line. But yeah, we've just launched a little bit of a campaign where we say to farmers, guys, should anybody in Africa know that you've got stock off cattle or whatever, except if you really put it out there, you need to advertise and you need to plan ahead and start start telling your story so that people buy into your brand and into your story. Yeah. And as as I'm listening to you talk, how do you then close the gates around any middleman putting their products on Farm Direct? You know, yeah. So how do you maybe manage that? It's it's it's not always easy. But we we try to we try to build a relationship with the farmers that we get onto the platform because they claim their farms. We've got a bit of an insight into the farm and the person around the farm. So they're a bit more reluctant to claim a farm if it's not really theirs. And if it's not really there, is the owner of that farm is going to claim it later on. And he's going to say, listen, this is not this is not his form or yours or a form, whatever. But it is a difficult one. If at the end of the day, if we could help farmers to sell their produce, then our vision is is is successful. So it is a difficult one differently. And yeah, it does a platform only when farmers enlisted products, does do the products have to be processed products? For example, I heard you talk about a farmer selling beef, etc. So if I'm a cattle farmer, you know, and I just want to sell my cattle live or chicken farm. And I just want to sell my broilers live. Is the platform one such that could accommodate that type of produce or would a farmer then have to maybe take their chickens or their beef to an avatar, come back to the farm, maybe wrap it and package it nicely to sell it into a box? Like you mentioned, so can live animals be sold? You know, and and also I'm just thinking also like maybe vegetable farmers, you know, you mentioned butternuts. If a farmer can put I'm selling my butternuts in pallets or does it have to be processed? So basically the question is on the platform when a farmer puts on their products, does the product specifically have to be processed or can they sell it live or raw from a from a horticulture perspective? No, they can definitely sell it live and raw. There's no reason why they couldn't. At the end of the day, our aim is to connect the buyer and the seller to each other. So what they trade between each other should just be from the farm. But we've got a farmer down in Worcester who does aquaponics. If I'm if I'm not mistaken, if that's the right word for it. But he sells his live fish that they use in dams and for. So no, definitely live chickens, cows, cattle, anything that you can think of as long as it's from the farm. Our aim is just to connect the buyer and the seller. So at the end of the day, we want to go more into commercial farmers as well and get them to list their stock on there. And the buyers can trade from them on the platform. I think it's an easy way for any farmer to start their own online store is if they just go on to farm direct. And it's a very small fee that we charge us under the 99 and a month per farmer for products. And they can list how many how many products they want to. So it's it's actually it's almost as cheap as you would have hosted your own website. But at the end of the day, we're throwing all the power of all these farmers together and marketing them as one. So yeah, so and I think you said earlier that the platform and the Instagram pages have grown a lot. We're doing our best to get it grown. But I think at the end of the day, the farmers are the heroes and the farmers are the guys telling the stories. And the the the followers on my platform is definitely not following because because I'm a good looking guy. It's because of the farmers and it's because of what they do every day. And it's because of of their two stories and the and the authentic photos that they're putting on and the products that they're selling directly. So so yeah, we've really got to aim to make the farmers famous because they need to be famous. Going through a lot. Absolutely. Farmers are my heroes. So African farmers also are the number one heroes. So, Yaku, thank you so much for your time this evening. But before I let you go, I just want to find out. So what's next for Farm Direct? They say, you know, any future plans in the next 12 months, five years that you are at liberty to share without any surprises. We dream big. So so we would love to have about 500 farmers by by the end of the year. And then and then at the end of the next year, 2,000 farmers, if that's if that's reachable. Yeah, so we would really want to grow the farming the farming numbers and the farmer numbers because the more farmers we get onto the platform, the stronger the platform will become. And the more sales each farmer will do. Because you get former ex down in George, but he only delivers down to poor Elisabeth Kubecha, maybe. So we need to get farmers in each little district around South Africa and we need to get them to start building their farming brands and to get their products out there and to really build their farming brands individually, but also together on the platform. So yeah, so I think the biggest aim is to to get more sales on the platform, but also at the moment we're building stock and the farmers is our stock and they they are the guys that we need to advertise and that we need to build around. The platform was built for farmers. So so yeah, that's the that's the midterm stock. Is there any stock that is not listed that people are in great demand of? That is an interesting question. What we add is when all the cases in riots and stuff happened about two months ago, we had a lot of people go onto the platform and they wanted to buy directly from farmers in KZN, which was a difficult one. And I wish we I wish we had more farmers in that area listed at that time because they would have done really, really well because of all the food shortages and stuff to answer your question. At the moment, I think the biggest seller on the platform is definitely meat sheep from the Kuru quality meat that the consumer can can know that it's it's formed properly and in the right ways. Yeah, I think the biggest seller on the platform at the moment is meat. As we go into summer, I think we will get more into vegetables and vegetable boxes is very nice vegetable farmers down in Philippi area. And yeah, we'll see. We'll let the consumer and the farmer lead the lead the platform. Absolutely. Thank you so much for your time this evening. This is a phenomenal business that you've started. And yeah, like we're talking offline, let's get the interest on and let's see how it goes. You know, I'm a people farmer in Johannesburg and every time people ask me, what do you do? And I say, I'm a farmer. They're like, wow, we never meet farmers in the city. So, you know, so it'll be a nice element to throwing there to say, hey, farm director say also in the city that you could buy and directly farm. But thank you so much for your time and all the best with Farm Direct. Thank you, Mubali. I really appreciate it. It was nice chatting to you. And let's get that papers listed on farmdirect.africa. We would love to have you. And let's see if we can bring you some sales. Absolutely. That was Yakub Adonis, the CEO and founder of Farm Direct South Africa, which is an agricultural marketplace for farmers to enlist their produce or products on the platform to sell directly to consumers. And as you heard, they try not to act as a middleman every day or five days or so. They keep, you know, vetting their business model to say, are we a middleman? Yes or no, because that's not the intention. The intention is really to market products and services of farmers to sell directly to consumers that they would not ordinarily have access to. And I guess for consumers as well, this is an opportunity for you to get to know your farmer, where they are, what they're farming and support them and buy their produce because it's coming directly from the farm. And I think this helps in terms of traceability and knowing where your food comes from at the end of the day. That is Farm Direct as say, please go visit their website. And yes, if you're a farmer, enlist your product in there, follow them on Facebook, on Instagram and also reach out to Yakub if you need any additional help. But that was it from us tonight. Thank you so much for watching. And I wish you a fantastic Heritage Month, Heritage Day tomorrow. Have a fantastic weekend and I will see you next Tuesday at 8 p.m. That's it for me. Take care. Bye bye.