Peter Tanyanyiwa
Obert Chifamba
Agri-Insight
PICTURE a bumper crop of tomatoes wilting in the field or rotting by the roadside, unsold and unseen — the stark reality for farmers who produce without lining up buyers first.
Such missteps ripple far beyond the farm gate, eroding livelihoods and ecosystems alike.
In fact, they invite a cascade of unintended consequences ranging from price crashes to ecological damage. The absence of market foresight can turn fertile fields into financial wastelands ruining a farmer’s life-long ambitions of prosperity in one fell swoop.
While it remains an undeniable fact that in an era of volatile global markets like the one we are currently trudging in, the allure of abundant yields can blind a farmer to the perils of unchecked production. And without a targeted market, crops become liabilities rather than assets, triggering economic fallouts, environmental strain, and social upheaval.
In other words, such oversight fuels everything from bankruptcies to biodiversity losses. The farmer will only watch helplessly as his investments in sweat, seed, and savings into the crop go up in smoke leaving him swimming in debt and literally licking a bruised ego.
The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimates that global food waste from mismatched supply and demand is claiming something in the region of 14 percent of production yet many farmers still overlook market signals.
Today my offering will try to explore what happens when farmers produce crops without making an effort to understand the demand such crops are commanding on the market.
In most cases, this happens when a farmer produces a crop because a neighbour is doing so and reaping good rewards. Such a farmer makes the mistake of just assuming that his produce will also make the desired impact on the market yet he needs to have first invested how others are faring and how demand for particular crops any given time may differ.
Farmers producing and selling fresh produce at mass markets around the country are guilty of most of the shortcomings I have already discussed above. They produce the same crop at the same time targeting the same market regardless of how demand will be looking like.
Consequently, most of them are always counting losses after failing to sell their commodities ate viable prices because there is a glut of such products on the market already. These farmers also inadvertently set themselves up for competition against each other instead of communicating and agreeing on different dates of planting and marketing.
It is disheartening to notice that they do not even target those moments when most markets would be in need of certain products so that they produce for an already-waiting market.
Forecasting market demand for crops involves analysing historical trends, current economic factors, and future projections on supply needs and price movements. This will help them to align production with buyer expectations, reducing risks like oversupply or shortages.
Effective forecasting combines data-driven tools, expert insights, and on-ground strategies. This involves revisiting historical data and analysing trends using past performance trends as a baseline. This requires the farmer to track his own yield records, local sales, and regional production volumes to identify seasonal patterns.
It is important for the farmer to review sales data from at least three to five seasons and try to establish correlations with external factors like weather events or economic shifts, for instance, rising fuel prices and the subsequent increasing transport and other costs of doing business.
Whatever farmers do, they must stay updated on current prices to gauge immediate demand signals. With the advent of social media, they can easily join various platforms to get information on daily, weekly or monthly reports on crop prices, export volumes, and inventory levels.
This allows them to notice emerging trends, like growing demand for a particular product on the market. They can also form cooperatives or associations and share intelligence.
Going the extra mile to conduct market research and consumer insights is also not a bad idea if a farmer is serious about running his operations as a business. This can be done by simply doing a survey to establish potential buyers, for example, wholesalers or exporters through phone or online tools like Google.
The astute farmer also attends shows to learn from others. It is during such events that the farmer gets to gauge market interest while analysing consumer trends, for instance, rising interest in traditional diets, veganism and many other such tastes.
There are also benefits in partnering with extension services for free workshops on demand segmentation. This can even help them build networks and secure forward contracts. Such a scenario will enable them to form alliances with buyers through contracts that lock in prices and volumes or even join farmer producer organisations for collective bargaining and shared forecasting.
Of course forecasting is not fool proof, as there are climate events like floods or drought and other variables like geopolitical events, for instance, the war in Ukraine that affected wheat production and even marketing dynamics. Policy changes especially in situations where farmers would have been receiving subsidies that are then discontinued thereby disrupting predictions.
It is always advisable for farmers to start small, focusing on one or two crops before scaling up. This must be backed by regular validation of forecasts against actual outcomes to refine their approach. Farmers situated in developing regions where if may be difficult to access the internet can always rely on low-cost options like community radio updates or Government or NGO programmes.
This will help them shift from reactive to proactive planning, potentially boosting profitability by between 15 and 25 percent through better-aligned production. For this to be effective, they need to work closely with agricultural experts for tailored advice in line with their different agro-ecological regions.
The absence of a targeted market complicates storage, transportation, and distribution with perishable crops like fruits or vegetables spoiling quickly if buyers do not come to the party. Non-perishables like grains require costly silos or processing facilities, which become sunk costs without outlets.
On the one hand, unplanned crop production can contribute to ecological harm. Intensive monoculture without demand signals often leads to overuse of water, fertilisers, and pesticides, degrading soil and contributing to biodiversity loss.
On a societal level, this approach is likely to cause food insecurity and rural instability. Besides this, over-reliance on a single crop without a market to absorb the product heightens vulnerability to pests or diseases.
To counter this, farmers need to innovate and create new markets so that there is no produce that goes to waste. Value addition may be a mitigation strategy while market forecasting, contracts with buyers, and diversified cropping have been known to buffer risks.
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