Branding: for smallholder farmers

Branding is the marketing practice of creating a name, symbol or design that identifies and differentiates a product from other products.

Anything that looks common would be priced as common; ordinary as ordinary. In business there are elements that add weight to ventures, they make products look more appealing, they prepare products for final acceptance by customers.

Our food comes from the soil; the soil is associated with dirt, hence, people's perception of agriculture as a dirty job. Sadly, this orientation has diffused into the Farmers' circle. This has outweighed their sense of beauty and product development and they have settled for raw; consequently, in most developing countries the production of crops and livestock have over the years witnessed a production halt at the harvest stage; discarding most off-farm practices; practices such as value addition and branding.

Usually, customers have a perception of what an ideal food should look like: covered or better still packaged and sealed away from the parading army of houseflies, kept safe from dust. Farmers must look into product packaging and branding.

There has been several occasions when customers had refused commodities such as uncovered meat, cucumbers, carrots etc Generally speaking this nonchalant attitude towards farm produce drives customers to supermarkets where they could get sealed food and this leaves no good reputation for the farmer.

Farmers and everyone on the farm-produce supply chain should begin to attempt giving produce a face lift; of course this will attract more cost in getting them ready for the market, but it is worth it, sales would get better for them.

Generally speaking, branded products are more accepted in the market; they are perceived  as authentic, unique and very limited, which is why more customers would like to buy as quickly as they can; conversely, unbranded commodities may likely be perceived as fake, common, ordinary, and cheap; in truth, nobody likes items that possess these unattractive qualities; even those who want cheap things.

Branding is not always as expensive as most people think, in fact, for farm produce like tomatoes, pepper, cucumber, garden egg, lean meat, table eggs etc a transparent bag with a little label on it is enough to give your product a better look and identity; these form of welfarism on a producer's path conveys a message to buyers; "that this product was brought to the market with my interest at heart" and this may just most likely make them flow towards this producer's stand.

Branding can be for agriculture in developing countries; it can be for the participants in the supply chain of a smallholder farmer. Every farmer can make their names spread through offering good products, good services, good packaging and branding.

If you are a farmer, brand! It stands you out from the crowd; it forms an image for your product, it gives you a voice in the market, thereby increasing your sales and consequently your income.

Written by Cornelius Eniola