Joselito “Jun” Ocol, the CEO and co-founder of an agritech startup company in the Philippines, has a goal of bringing the concept of accessibility and availability from the fictional market into reality to benefit Filipinos, especially the farmers.
Named after the kingdom where Aladdin flies around in his magic carpet, Agrabah is a tech startup company that serves as an online platform where farmers and consumers can find each other and make transactions at a fair price.
“We’re empowering Filipino farmers to steadily earn a fair profit through our online platforms that connects them to institutional consumers and partners,” Ocol said.
Agrabah acts as a mediator by sourcing orders from big companies then reaching out and employing farming communities who could meet the request for fresh products.
Ocol and his wife, Josephine Gumino, started by bridging fishing communities with institutional consumers, then later added crop farmers to their list.
WHARF, MARKETPLACE, AND FAIR
Ocol said that there are three different platforms that Agrabah offers where farmers can gain a fair profit as well as direct access to the market: the wharf, marketplace, and fair.
First is the “Wharf” which is a business to business (B2B) model that connects farmers to institutional consumers by providing the former with an order before they even start planting.
“The good thing about the Wharf is that we can assure the farmers that we can buy everything that they will be planting,” Ocol said.
In the meantime, Agrabah is developing “Marketplace,” a business to consumer (B2C) model that functions as an online store where consumers from the Metro can select from the available products and place an order which will then be delivered as soon as possible.
“For us, it’s not on demand and we’re setting proper expectations. We’re actually targeting small karinderyas. So it means they can order before the cut-off time, then the product will be delivered the next day,” Ocol said.
This story is from the August 2019 edition of Agriculture.
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This story is from the August 2019 edition of Agriculture.
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