Commoditrader.com: Romania – the first country in Eastern Europe to launch the digital agricultural trade platform

By Edwig Ban
The Romanian producers and traders from the agricultural sector have at their disposal, starting on Wednesday, the Commoditrader digital platform, which allows them to commercialize and manage the digital transport of agricultural products.
According to a statement, the Danish-origin application Commoditrader offers customers the opportunity to compare the prices and other contract terms in the agricultural markets, both in Romania and abroad, thus increasing the bargaining power of farmers and giving traders easier access to market, support representatives of the platform.
Romania is the first country in Eastern Europe to launch this platform.
“We chose Romania because it is a rapidly developing market, with a population of people open to thinking, ready for change – which we consider a key aspect in opening up new ways of trading. Romania is also one one of the largest cereal producers in Europe, although the structure of the trade requires optimization in order to give Romanian farmers better access to the market, and is therefore one of the most important priorities of our business, “says Ida Boesen, co- founder of Commoditrader.
Romania has a share of 53.4% of agricultural land in its entire territory and, although it owns one third of the farms in the European Union, much more than any other EU member state, it has only 4% of the total agricultural production in the region, According to Eurostat, based on data from 2016. The export with agricultural products in 2017, in the EU, was 9% of the total exports from Romania and 14.4% from the countries outside the EU.
Commoditrader.com will be launched in Eastern Europe in the coming months, starting today with Romania.
The digital market Commoditrader.com is a Danish startup and aims to facilitate the trading of cereals and raw materials, in a transparent environment in terms of prices and easy and secure access for all players in agriculture.
Commoditrader claims that it wants to create a better market perspective for buyers and sellers, giving them the opportunity to compare terms and prices available in the market. The platform is built with a transport algorithm that calculates the transport that can be reserved on all ads, so that users can make comparisons between multiple locations of the warehouses and gain access to new buyers and sellers.
The representatives of the platform consider that, thus, a greater transparency is created, a better understanding of the market, but also an increased bargaining power of the farmer, on the one hand, and an easier access to the market for the breeders of animals, mills, producers. of forages and trading houses, which buy cereals, corn and soy from farmers, on the other hand.
The Commoditrader can be used free of charge, according to the representatives of the application.
The platform is easy to access, by creating a user profile, which can be buyer, seller, or both. After configuring the profile, the user creates an ad in order to attract the attention of other buyers or sellers, and all prices are listed on the platform, including the cost of transport. The user can choose his own transport provider and the platform will calculate all the logistical costs included or can reserve the transport from the platform. If the seller and the buyer decide on the transaction, they can enter into a contract within the platform, all the information of the parties being available before entering into the transaction.
Commoditrader ApS is a Danish fintech start-up, founded in 2018 by Julie Koch Fahler and Ida Boesen and a group of Danish farmers with farms in Denmark, Lithuania and Russia. The Commoditrader.com platform was launched in Denmark this year, and currently groups around 15% of Danish farmers. In Denmark, this segment of 15% of farmers produces 40% of the country’s grain production, according to company representatives. Launching the online trading platform www.commoditrader.com, the company is committed to supporting transparent and open trade and to creating better farm-level connections using digitization.