The national digital platform to foster the creation of consumer communities in short supply chains, created as part of the AGROvila project, is already open to the public.
The project, led by the Polytechnic Institute of Coimbra (IPC), had as priority promoting local trade between producer and consumer, seeking to create other marketing channels, respecting the principles of short supply chains and energizing the territory.
“We did not want to be just another platform, but a platform that would differentiate itself by being able to fulfill the great advantages and the main characteristics of short supply chains,” said Isabel Dinis, the project coordinator, at the closing session of AGROvila, at the Escola Superior Agrária do Politécnico de Coimbra (ESAC-IPC).
The platform is based on a village pattern, active in Coimbra, Vila Real, the Algarve and the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, offering products and baskets for order.
Each village includes producers, consumers, and a product pick-up point.
“Rather than having a producer deliver products individually to each of their customers, or customers, individually, go to each of their producers to fetch the product, what the platform allows is to have a central pickup location,” explained Filipe Portela of IOTech, project partner.
The platform enables the entire process, except for payment, which must be made at the time of pickup or via MB WAY.
To Lusa, Isabel Dinis considered that the project is “very interesting, in that, really, there are few alternatives for small-scale farming to profitably transact its products.”
For the project coordinator, this is an alternative that, at the same time, can “be capable of leveraging the advantages of short supply chains” and solve “some problems that these chains have, namely the issue of convenience.”
“In terms of convenience, short supply chains, at times, have many inconveniences for consumers and in this case not, because they can come during an entire afternoon, for example, to collect their order,” she sustained.
For Isabel Dinis, the initiative is important for producers, but also for the consumer, because this “has difficulty accessing high-quality fresh products.”
“The consumer can obtain high-quality and freshness at a very inviting price,” she told Lusa.
According to the project coordinator, “there is an education work” that needs to be done, because “it is necessary for the consumer to understand that agricultural production is not an industrial production,” which is “conditioned by the climate, by the crop cycle.”
“This solution is not a solution for the ordinary consumer. It is a solution for an informed consumer, who has social concerns, environmental concerns. That is our target consumer,” she concluded.
