Introduction

For many centuries, farmers have toiled the soil, feeding countless generations. This profession dates back to the dawn of human civilization. It is safe to call farmers the bedrock of any nation because, without food, there is no life. It is quite unfortunate that these backbones of human evolution, the custodians of our food supply, get little to no return for their hard work. In a recent interview with Steve Kusu, the founder of Gonana and a beneficiary of the NODO Grant, we discussed in detail the problems facing Agriculture in Nigeria and how Gonana is leveraging blockchain technology to solve those problems. Let's dive in!

What is Gonana?

Gonana is a web3-enabled marketplace for farmers and commodity traders to sell their farm produce or products, enabling them to trade seamlessly with the option of crypto for payment, rather than just having the traditional fiat payment option. This online marketplace plans to make transacting easy and flexible for farmers by connecting them directly to buyers and eradicating the middlemen that most often take advantage of these local farmers.

During a recent interview with Kusu, he said,

“We are building Gonana for the Grass root to introduce them to what blockchain and what other things they can do with blockchain away from just the monetary value”

Why Gonana?

One of the major problems facing agriculture in Nigeria, in terms of commerce, is the lack of an effective, standardized marketplace for farmers to sell their farm produce directly to buyers. This leaves them at the mercy of middlemen who take more than half of their profits, leaving them with pennies despite all their labor and hard work. Gonana plans to solve this problem by creating a marketplace, built on blockchain, that is designed to enable farmers to trade their farm produce globally not just in Nigeria using this modern technology. This will help farmers earn more profits, increase productivity, and foster blockchain adoption at the local level.

When asked about why he created Gonana, Kusu said,

“Myself and a couple of other co-founders, we’ve had experiences with the local marketplace and middlemen that informed a solution we came up with, to be able to help just do away with the influence of the middlemen as much as possible and that we are doing by having to create a marketplace giving the farmers access to a variety of other customers that they could deal with not necessarily going through a middleman”

Features on Gonana

Below are some of the features that Gonana offers

On-ramp and Off ramp feature

This feature is implemented on the Gonana Dapp which enables users to convert their fiat money to any stablecoin on the platform. This system is easy to use and it permits the farmers or commodity traders on Gonana to swap their fiat into tokens or exchange one crypto token for another. This also means that they can stake, swap, lend, and borrow while earning some profit for their Defi activities. This is to give farmers a comprehensive approach to the blockchain ecosystem.

Wallet

Gonana has an in-built storage feature that allows every user on the platform to store their crypto or fiat currency. Where they can easily liquidate their tokens to naira or any other currency available on the platform.

Escrow

An escrow means a financial agreement, whereby an asset or money is held by a third party, in this case, Gonana and the users, and taken only when a specified condition has been met.

Logistics Service

To ensure flexibility and mobility, the Gonana team has integrated a logistic service to help farmers and buyers transport their products to their doorsteps. Presently the platform has DHL and GIG logistics available on the platform to foster faster transportation.

Staking

In the future, every active user of the Gonana platform will be able to earn rewards in 'GONA' (The Gonana native token), provided they are actively contributing to the growth of the community. Rewarding users is one of the key perks of web3, Gonana being a web3 project will incentivize everyone to contribute to the marketplace, not only farmers.

Why Trade on Gonana?

These are some of the reasons you should trade on Gonana as a Farmer or a commodity Trader

Security

Every transaction performed on the Gonana marketplace is safe and secured since the platform is built on blockchain technology. So users do not have to worry much about their funds being tampered with.

Low Fee

Trading on Gonana is almost completely free. Only a 1.5% fee is charged per every successful transaction a user performs. According to the founder, The aim is to help the farmers make more profits and also reward them for all the labor and hard work they put into production.

Scalability

Gonana allows multiple users to trade at the same regardless of the time difference or location without any glitches.This marketplace has a high throughput and can scale drastically without compromising speed or misplacing transactions.

Easy shopping

Gonana allows farmers and commodity traders to transact 24/7 provided they have a stable internet connection. As a user you don’t need to worry about the problems faced by the traditional marketplace such as queues and traffic while payment can be done conveniently with your local currency or crypto and your orders will be delivered with one of the logistic companies integrated on the platform.

User-friendly

Considering that farmers, one of the target audiences, are not tech-savvy, Gonana is built in such a way that anyone can use it.

When asked about how he plans to deal with the technical issues with farmers, Kusu said,

“The problem of infrastructure is not just a Nigeria thing. As we move forward it keeps getting better and better, we are not onboarding over 50 million farmers we’ve in Nigeria in a day, we are onboarding one farmer at a time. So as we move the problem keeps getting solved and we keep progressing together”

Conclusion

In conclusion, Gonana, as the first web3-based marketplace in Nigeria, is bringing a different approach to helping farmers and solving one of their age-old problems. This platform is reshaping the agricultural sector and making a profound impact not just in Nigeria but globally. By providing farmers with a platform to connect, trade, and strive. Gonana is not just revolutionizing traditional agriculture, but also fostering sustainable practice and global food commerce. It is safe to say Gonana is at the forefront of a new era in farming, one that holds the promise of a more prosperous, connected, and sustainable future for farmers worldwide.