Poor branding of agro-vet shops a big turn-off to farmers

Kenya’s farming scenario has undergone a tremendous transformation over the years. In recent days, more and more farmers have taken to greenhouse farming besides adopting other modern farming technologies.

In the dairy sector, unlike two decades ago, a good number of farmers in Kenya now keep better animal breeds with very high milk yields. In sum the Kenyan farmer is getting progressively sophisticated while farming itself is increasingly attracting younger and better-educated persons.

However, outlets selling farm inputs, popularly known as agro-vet shops have not changed much in terms of design and structure. Unlike in the case of other consumer merchandise, most agro-vet shops don a dull green or brown, are dingy and hardly inspiring to shop in.

These shops are designed as though farming, as an enterprise, has not changed at all in Kenya in half a century. Herein lies the folly of calling young people to embrace agriculture when sectors key to agriculture remain dilapidated or outright archaic.

Things were different when the Kenya Farmers Association (KFA), later Kenya Grain, Growers Union (KGGCU) had a chain of stores right across Kenya. The brand of these shops was standard and the stores themselves were orderly, airy and elaborately equipped. These stores were the ultimate delight of any farmer for prices as were products were standard.

With regard to trusting products, farmers had little to worry about when buying from KFA/KGGCU because there was an explicit structure to the business. The KFA/KGGCU model inspired confidence in the farm input buying community without a doubt. But then the stores are gone and no serious effort has been made to replace them. Yet the need for farming inputs keeps soaring by the day.

The lack of a structured chain of agro-vet shops means that counterfeit products can very easily find their way to the shelves. Of course the implications of wide sales and usage of fake farm inputs is a threat to productivity, the environment and human as well as animal health.

It would be defeatist to sit back and allow disorder and lack of proper structures to wreck farm inputs business in Kenya. A change of course ought to start somewhere and soon.

It is commonsense that a well-lit and pleasantly branded agro-vet shop with spacious aisles would attract customers more and offer them a chance to interrogate and compare farming inputs.

An ideal agro-vet set-up should have sections reserved for various types of products and excellent labelling. Currently, with the awkward common merchandising and product presentation trends, it is near impossible to even check such details as expiry dates on products that could turn disastrous on plants and animals.

PRODUCT PRESENTATION

Encouraging better floor plans and product presentation of products in agro-vet shops is a great incentive for shoppers but that is just one among many possible advantages.

An eye-catching brand with practical elements that enhance the possibility of interrogating products is itself a model that entrepreneurs should embrace. This means that a wave of establishing similar shops would take root and in its wake open up opportunities for employment and wealth making.

The farming population in Kenya runs into millions already.
And with the modernisation of farming technologies becoming more and more appealing against the reality of shrinking arable land, chances that agro-vet outlets will be the 21st Century farmer’s best friend are real.

Seen from this point of view, it is critical that stores that sell farming inputs move with changing times.

Manufacturers of various types of farming inputs have not been able to display their wares inside stores that sell them in Kenya because of design issues.

Yet you can imagine how easy it would be to promote products that enter the Agro-vet market very so often inside spacious stores built with the customer in mind.

In fact, product manufacturers would easily mount promotion desks inside Agro-vet stores and teach promote the use of new products better than when brochures and fliers are used. 

Besides, with a good standard design of agro-vet shops, an entire workforce would benefit from the prospect of establishing each new shop. Think of the paint sellers, sellers of timber, nails, roofing sheets, cement, aluminium and iron bars as well as artisans and fitters who would find new work opportunities to service.

Most importantly, filling this crucial marketing gap holds the key to expanded business in the agro-vet sector over and above adding to the entire agribusiness value chain the elusive bait that would entice young persons to partake farming in bigger numbers.

Mr Soi is the Ceo Siongiroi Dairy Limited.