Digital Marketplaces for Farm-to-Consumer Trade: A Comparative Review of E-Commerce Platforms, Architectures, and Adoption Barriers in Agricultural Supply Chains

Both studies reach a similar conclusion from different directions. Digital marketplaces can shorten the distance between farmer and consumer, raise the share of the final price that reaches the grower, and give buyers fresher produce at a transparent price, but only when the platform suits the infrastructure, literacy and trust levels of the community using it. Large state-backed systems such as eNAM show what is possible at national scale. Leaner cooperative designs such as the Farmer Gateway show that the same disintermediation can be achieved with a lighter technical footprint, using shared vending points and offline-tolerant apps instead of assuming fast connectivity everywhere. Neither approach alone removes the lasting barriers of rural infrastructure, digital literacy, cost and language. Those will need coordinated effort from governments, technology providers, cooperatives and financial institutions. With that support, digital farm-to-consumer trade can plausibly become a lasting contributor to rural incomes, affordable food and more resilient supply chains.

[1] FAO, The Digitalization of Agriculture: Concepts, Drivers and Future Pathways, Food and Agriculture Organization, Rome, 2020. [2] World Bank, ICT in Agriculture: Connecting Smallholders to Knowledge, Networks, and Institutions, World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016. [3] McKinsey & Company, “AgTech: Breaking down the digital agriculture opportunity,” McKinsey & Company Report, 2021. [4] Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, e-NAM Platform Overview, Government of India, 2021. [5] KPMG India, AgriTech – Towards Transforming Indian Agriculture, KPMG Report, 2020. [6] UNCTAD, Digital Economy Report 2019: Value Creation and Capture, United Nations, 2019. [7] Deloitte, Smart Agriculture: Bridging the Digital Divide in Farming, Deloitte Insights, 2021. [8] OECD, Enhancing Market Access for Smallholders through E-commerce Platforms, OECD Publishing, 2022. [9] IFPRI, Digital Opportunities in Agriculture: COVID-19 Response and Beyond, International Food Policy Research Institute, 2020. [10] A. A. Alyoubi, “E-commerce in developing countries,” Procedia Computer Science, vol. 65, pp. 479–483, 2015.