Want to cut out the middle man, sell your own grain directly and take the price you want? That’s ‘Graindex’ in a nutshell.
Between 8,000 and 10,000 tillage farmers and merchants in the UK are currently using Graindex, while a further 20,000 use a similar app for livestock farmers – ‘Sell My Livestock’.
AgriLand spoke to Patrick Bidwell from Graindex at Cereals in the UK recently.
The process is simple. When a farmer makes a decision to sell grain, they create a listing on Graindex. They enter a number of parameters, including: the crop to sell; the tonnage available; quality indicators; harvest year; and location.
The basic principles:
- There are two trading periods throughout the day – 10:00am to 12:00pm and 2:00pm to 4:00pm;
- Merchants can see the listing and put a bid on grain they wish to purchase;
- Merchants don’t see each other’s bids;
- The farmer selling can see all of the bids coming in;
- The farmer can then decide on these bids from 12:00pm to 12:20pm.
The app saves farmers time; rather than making phone calls to traders, they can simply create a listing, revisit the listing in two hours time and decide on a price to take or not to take.
Farmers will reach a wider base of buyers and have the added advantage of being the only one who can see the offers being made.
Graindex currently has 43 merchants, buyers and end users on its books. These end users include large nationals, smaller mills and pig farms. There is currently no charge for Graindex.
