IICD supported project: Eastern Corridor Agro-Market Information Centre (ECAMIC)

Countries: Ghana [GH]
Sectors: livelihoods

Summary

The ECAMIC project focuses on supporting farmers in the Eastern Corridor through forming cooperative farmer groups. The Social Enterprise Foundation of West Africa (SEND) promotes the cultivation of soy beans in the northeast of Ghana through the ECAMIC project in order to contribute to improving the livelihood of more than 2000 farming families in the Eastern Corridor of Northern Ghana. The potential market for soya beans and their high nutritional value offer potential to enhance income of farmers as well as improve food security.

Update

Updated: 2008-06-03

<p>The past half year saw the conclusion of the first phase, with the construction of new notice boards to make information more accessible for communities. It also saw the training of farmer cooperative representatives in Basic ICT skills. In addition, the formulation and signing of the contract for the second phase was concluded. Having successfully completed the two-year period, the project will now be extended with one objective: to develop the capacity and efficiency of the farmers through the deployment and use of mobile phones.</p>
<p>The second phase of the ECAMIC project is designed to consolidate the positive outcomes that the farmers derived over the past two years, address the challenges encountered during that time, and pursue systematically the path towards sustainability. In the second phase, more crops and farm produce such as okra and pepper have been added and a new market information centre in Chamba. Furthermore, ECAMIC has become a member of Tradenet &ndash; a trading platform using internet and mobile phones.</p>

Introduction

The rural farmer in Ghana is greatly saddled with the difficulty of accessing the right information regarding what to produce and where, when, and how to market. Although marketing is a national problem, the situation of small-scale food crop farmers in the eastern corridor is one of the most serious.

Therefore a market information facility was developed with IICD assistance. This market facility serves as a source of market information and data to twenty four community based farmers’ cooperatives. The members of the cooperatives are producing soybean, maize, and other food crops on an individual basis but they market their annual produce through a cooperative arrangement. By selling cooperatively, individual farmers have become reliable suppliers of products and have profited from an enlarged market and up-to-date information on market prices.

Objectives

From November 2007 the second phase started with the following objectives:

• to access small-scale food crop producers to a timely, accurate and concise agricultural market information so that they can make informed judgement on the marketing of their crops; specifically crops to be covered include: soybean, pepper, okro, maize, cassava, beans and groundnut;
• to access farm-families through their community based farmers cooperatives to information on essential farm inputs (agro-chemicals, improved seed, farm-implements), health information (nutrition, reproductive health, HIV/AIDS) and relevant government policy information;
• to develop the capacity of individual farmers (and in groups) to use mobile phones to carry out agro-market transactions (upload prices, receive price offers, make offers/bids, follow-up market negotiations, etc.) in a much faster and economical manner;
• to develop the capacities of farmer-cooperatives to be efficient and effective in information down-streaming and utilisation to their members through building their institutional capacities;
• to strengthen SEND’s efficiency and effectiveness in market data/information sourcing, processing and dissemination to small scale food crop producers and consumers of selected crops (soybean, pepper, okro, maize, cassava, beans and groundnut) through building SEND’s human and physical capacity.

Development Impacts

The project will have impact on the organised farmers (582) and cooperative groups (24) in Salaga Zone and Kpandai Zone with a total number of beneficiaries of 189,158. The impact is economically (increased income because of market access), knowledge (sharing agric input information) and skills (basic computer skills).

Results

Improved access to market information through the use of mobile phone has allowed farmers to be able to make informed market decisions in the course of selling their farm produce. Furthermore, the use of mobile phones to access information has enabled farmers taken control of when to access market information which assist them in making informed judgement during market negotiations.

The use of ICTs and other mediums of information dissemination is the driving-force to the achievement of the project objectives. Apart from the use of mobile phones as a tool to transmit market information, Cooperative Information Officers continue to disseminate weekly prices to cooperative leaders who then organise meetings with their members to discuss the information so received (interpret market prices for the benefit of illiterate members and advice one another). In addition, literate leaders with mobile phones do access market information and translate to their colleagues who do not have phones.

Sourcing for possible buyers of farmers produce especially Soybean is one major component of the project. The project team facilitated arrangements for Savannah Agricultural Market Company to purchase the farmers produce. A Total of 97,561 kilograms (about 96 tons) was sold to Savannah Marketing Company at GH¢0.26 per kilo (total GH¢ 25,365) which at that time was the highest price in the market. The Community Information Officers (CIOs) facilitated the meeting process between the leadership of the farmers and the Managing Director of Savannah Marketing Company. The CIOs also assisted in the process of transferring the monies to the various groups in accordance with the quantity sold as well as assisting with evacuation of the produce. 

While the project sought to assist the members of the farmers’ cooperative with half the price of the mobile-phone for about 200 persons, the farmers proposed that the percentage of support per handset be reduced to about 30% of the cost. By this, the subsidy would spread to more farmers than previously envisaged. This was an encouragement and a demonstration of the willingness of the farmers to sustain the use of the handsets. Their suggestion was found laudable and arrangements are therefore made in that regard except that, women members are still being considered for a higher percentage of the subsidy.

Other results so far are:

• Establishment of Market Information Centres at the headquarters in Tamale and in Kpandai and Salaga Zone to offer the following services
• Agric market price information based on the main source of information MOFA and some trade agents and the internet
• Agric input information based on information from agribusinesses
• Basic computer literacy training provided by project team members
• Skills training in the use of computers in order to access online market information provided by project team members
• Training in the use of community price notice boards by the project team members

Lessons learned

• ICT and Market Access are good bedfellows when the right balance is found. Without a good means of dissemination, the most qualitative agricultural market information is useless since it cannot get to the desired users. Notwithstanding the difficulty, it is necessary to achieve a balance between type of ICT tool to deploy and its sustainability. The decision to invest in a VSAT at the initial stage of the project did not come with ease as the decision to discontinue its usage in the wake of new and more affordable tools.
• For farmers the learning point was to always crosscheck the status of information with the aid of the market agents before taking decisive decision to supply to a given market. This lesson is being shared with farmers in other communities.

Budget

€ 112,635 (first contract) + € 116,839 (second contract)

Project Owner : SEND Foundation

Project Partners : IICD and Cordaid

Project Contact : IICD