|
|
Örebro University applied for funding of a project developing an Agricultural Market Information Systems (AMIS), providing better functioning local agricultural markets and in particular supporting small farmers in rural Bangladesh. The project will be pursued in cooperation with the Department of Agricultural Marketing (DAM) under the Bangladesh Ministry of Agriculture The project draws on, and extends, already initiated efforts by DAM. DAM has since several years developed an AMIS. This, however, is yet not functioning as hoped, mainly because of low outreach following inappropriate technical solutions and deficiencies in local organisation. This project will address the difficulties encountered earlier. The preconditions for implementing the system here proposed have been investigated by Örebro university in a survey to 1050 proposed users and interviews with stakeholders during early 2007, and the solution is designed following the findings from that study.
Project duration : September 2007 to June 2009 Project deliverables are:
Subject description The Department of Agricultural Marketing (DAM) with support from the Food Agricultural Organization (FAO) has been working together to make agricultural market information available. In a recent project funded by FAO 20 computers were set up in 20 districts for paper collection, sending via data entry through computer terminals by dial up connections. However, due to lack of computer maintenance at the district levels, data collection remains a hurdle. Data access also remains a hurdle due to lack of computer literacy and ICT infrastructure. The current cycle of data collection to publication takes just under seven months. Compared to 1.5m PCs there are now 16m mobiles in operation. Mobiles are increasingly being used in rural villages. Grameen’s Village Phone project has helped expand the rural mobile base. There are presently 122,000 village cell phone women who have the potential to connect poor farmers to a market price information system. Mobile phones therefore present an alternative for both data collection and dissemination. The prototype for such a system was designed, built and lab tested at BRAC University. The designed system The designed system used actual agricultural data and took into account both the low literacy levels of farmers as well as the limitations of the mobile screens and text capacities. The database design uses simplified codes for the agricultural produce and market operation in Bangladesh. The proposed commercial system will collect up-to-date market information (via cell phone or computer) fed into a database managed on a SMS Server, which would then be accessible to clients requesting price information for agricultural products via text messaging. The text messages would both request and receive price information. The prototype was tested both for data collection and dissemination of 50 agricultural items. Market investigators collect up-to-date agricultural commodities prices information from a grower’s – level market on market days and send price information using text messaging over cell phones into a database managed on a SMS Server, which in turn would be accessible to clients requesting price information for agricultural products through a text message request. Given the low literacy levels of farmers as well as limitations of cell phone screens and text capacities, the system uses simplified messaging. The system provides full awareness of all parties of prevailing market prices. The proposed Agricultural Market Price Information Collection & Dissemination through mobiles in a developing country can have the following impact:
Such a system would not only be of use to farmers but also to the government and help to bring the agricultural economy to a more equitable level. Criteria for project evaluation Relevance: Bangladesh is primarily an agrarian economy, generating export earnings not only in farming but also by an agricultural manufacturing sector. Rural development has become a function of agricultural growth. But as there are many small farmers and less than perfect information for stakeholders in the sector, the market is volatile to manipulation and uninformed actions. Farmers’ participation in market and transport management is so poor that most of the time they are being forced to sell their products to local middlemen at dumped prices. Under these circumstances, experts opine that this deprivation on part of the growers may greatly be reduced if they would have been empowered with information. Timely and unbiased agricultural marketing information will help farmers to bargain with the middlemen for a fair price and gain profitable decisions in the short term with regard to what price to produce and what price to expect (Islam, 2006). In addition to farmers this information is also important to the wholesalers, retailers, consumers, ministry of agriculture, researchers and policy makers. Like farmers, wholesalers may have the opportunity to locate their profitable market whereas retailers can buy and sell their products at market prices from the wholesalers and to the customers respectively. In the light of the above, the Government of Bangladesh has taken a number of steps in order to disseminate agricultural market information to the concerned stakeholders, specifically farmers, traders, policy makers and the media. However, progress has been scarce as technology used has been over the top and as local organisation for information capture and input has been problematic. Our system will improve that as mobile technology is readily accessible in rural Bangladesh, and as the Village phone organisation also provides expertise in use. The project draws on close collaboration among main actors in the field, including the DAM and a telecommunications company. Originality: While mobile technology is generously available in rural Bangladesh, as in many other developing countries, innovations in its use for commercial applications have been surprisingly slow to materialise. Our project is in that sense original; it provides truly innovative use with great potential for cost reduction, timeliness, and availability for local non-resourceful actors. It will also add to knowledge about ICT for development, as potentially true rural development will occur in (mainly) the form of better functioning markets and more empowered farmers. However it draws on established technology and is not a risk in a technical sense. Technology transfer: In particular the project will transfer skills to use, and in particular make use of, new ICT among farmers in rural Bangladesh. It will improve their ICT skills, but in particular their skills and opportunities to act rational on the agricultural market. At the organisational level, the project will also transfer to Bangladesh knowledge in how to integrate mobile telephone technology with traditional Internet technology into electronic government solutions viable in a developing country environment. Probability of success: We have in early 2007 made empirical studies into the existing system and prospects for one based on mobile technologies (Islam and Grönlund, 2007). Interviews with stakeholders and a survey with 1050 respondents among farmers, retailers and wholesalers shows that mobile technology in combination with local human resources stands a good chance of attracting a large number of users. There is a great dissatisfaction with prices and market information, in particular among farmers. 80 % of farmers say the would go to some other market to sell if prices were better there, and almost 60 % say they would use mobile phones to get such information. There is also awareness in the DAM that the current system is not sufficient to serve local actors. There is interest in a mobile solution, and so the pilots proposed here will be considered for full-scale implementation. The project serves to improve an ongoing but largely failed government system and is therefore a way of ensuring already made investments come to use.
|
