Eastern Corridor Agricultural Marketing Information Centre (ECAMIC Project)

- To access small-scale producers through their community based farmer cooperatives, traders and consumers, to provide timely, accurate and concise market information on selected farm produce.

- To provide access for farm-families, through their community based farmers cooperatives, to information on essential farm inputs and relevant government policies.

- To enable SEND to become efficient and effective in sourcing, processing and dissemination of market data/information to small scale producers (farmers)

- To build the capacity of leaders of the farmer-cooperatives to be efficient and effective in data/information down streaming and utilisation to their members.

Key Activities and Achievements:

The first achievement of the project is getting it started and running. The completion of the deployment of the key resources meant to facilitate information dissemination. VSATs (Very Small Aperture Terminal) have been installed at the project headquarters in Tamale and also at the community office in Salaga. These devices are presently being used by the project team to transmit information between the headquarters and the communities. Also an access base database system has been developed for off-line usage that allows the technical Information Officer (TIO) and Cooperative Information Officers (CIOs) to process and disseminate weekly information to the farmers. In an environment where technology has not been identified as a development vehicle capable of sending us further than we can go, getting such a system started in the first place is a worthwhile achievement.

Farmer’s economic lives improved through sound judgement based on information received. The provision of accurate and timely market information to farmers in the Eastern Corridor has enhanced their negotiations and marketing decisions concerning the sale of their produce. This is because farmers are now equipped with market information on the price of various produce in the cities or towns before they sell to buyers. Also, farmers are provided with information on farm inputs to enable them manage their farms and take good care of their produce. It also helps farmers to make good decisions on the type of crop to store as grain banks.

Market information made available to the larger community through notice boards. The installation of the notice boards has made market information available not only to farmer cooperatives but also to the whole community. Farmers were happy with this, because they would not always have to meet physically to share the information, as they used to. It is important to note that farmer’s leaders write the information they receive on the notice boards themselves following a training they had on the use of the boards in which each leader got the opportunity to demonstrate how to present the information on the board.

Acquisition of skills through a development intervention is one sure way of assuring the sustainability of the project’s intervention after close out. Therefore Knowledge in the use of computer is one such skill under the ECAMIC project. As part of our achievement, frontline end users (farmer’s cooperatives) can now use the computer to access information following the literacy and awareness raising training they had on the use of ICT to access market information on the internet.  By this, farmers now appreciate the important role ICT can play to improve their livelihood.

Another significant achievement is the Skills of Community Information Officers in managing data. They use computers as a tool to assist them in the processing of market information to farmers. They underwent a hands-on training on selected Office programmes to build their capacity on data management and can now properly manage the Database System and other Office programs to enhance the quality of their work.