Marketing Information System, Chuquisaca - Bolivia

The ACLO Foundation (Fundación Acción Cultural Loyola) supports the development of small farmers in the Chuquisaca region in Bolivia. This project focuses on capacity development in ICT in support of four associations (Tarvita, Alcalá, Sopachuy and El Villar) which work together under the brand name of ASOVITA. ACLO operates telecentres in these four communities. Connectivity costs of roughly $300/month are a challenge, as these are not or very incompletely recovered by fees charged to visitors. Their operation depends therefore entirely on external funding. This negatively influences sustainability of the project.

The project ultimately focuses on creating a system called SMTIC for the dissemination of market information on volumes, prices, commercial strategies, quality standards, market tendencies and consumer preferences. This way, the project helps farmers finding new markets. This system has only materialised to a small extent.

ACLO contributes to the agricultural market prices information system maintained by the Prefectura de Santa Cruz by providing information from the markets of Sucre and Monteaguro.

Small-scale producers in Bolivia are in an unfavourable position in agricultural commerce because of lack of knowledge and limited access to price and market information. Missing or erroneous information, which may be altered by middlemen, leads to wrong decisions in agricultural production and commercialisation. As a result agricultural income of smallholders is negatively influenced. This project will have a positive effect on the information stream to farmers.

Read more about IICD Bolivia Country Programme

The ACLO project provides information services to smallholder associations (SMTIC - dissemination of market information).

Four associations (Tarvita, Alcalá, Sopachuy and El Villar) work together under the brand name of ASOVITA.

Most of the information is disseminated through Radio ACLO, ACLO’s own radio station. 86% of the local population in the Chuquisaca region listens to this radio station.

The centrally maintained database with historical prices resides on their web page, but is no longer operational.

In 2009 and 2010, IICD has made budget available for continuing institutional support to the ACLO organisation, covering the salary of the ACLO technician. This support occurs in the framework of a project on rural digital alphabetisation, a 3-year project with a very wide target group. Only the 1st phase is financially covered, through the Bélgica project. This 1st phase has run for 2 years, since 2007, and expired at the end of 2009.

In the framework of this 1st phase, news items have been generated by the trained reporteros. Rather than sending these as attached files the generated items were sent as SMS messages, There are no statistics on the number of items generated. Neither do the news items figure on the web site of ACLO, apparently.

A project covering ACLO’s contribution to the agricultural market prices information system maintained by the Prefectura de Santa Cruz by providing information from the markets of Sucre and Monteaguro is now being implemented.

The Information Network about using ICT for Agricultural Markets has been developed. The Monitoring System for Information and Communication Technologies (SMTIC) has been set up. This system has three main lines of action:

1. Interactive training and capacity development of human resources (the producers) by means of several modules providing training and capacity development activities in relation to different issues such as the management of agricultural business, agricultural marketing and the promotion of municipal economies.
2. Research Services on Agricultural Markets (SIMA) consisting of the periodical gathering and systematisation of information about prices, total amounts of agricultural products currently in the market, about rural markets and urban assembling markets, wholesale and retail markets and the identification of potential customers in the local area, in the Department and on a national and international level.
3. A Municipal Productive Information System (SPIM) that sets up a broadcasting system providing periodic information by means of an internal communication system dealing with the dissemination of information through the mass media and with the design of a website to display all the information about goods and services offered and asked for by each one of the associations.

As a result of the project, there is now a well-structured programme for capacity development in management of small companies. Connectivity at the level of the “Unidades Económicas Familiares” has been significantly improved. There is a much-consulted price and market information system available on-line.

Read more about IICD's Bolivia Country Programme.

The project meets the lack of appropriate and well-timed information. Its main purpose is the creation of suitable conditions for producers to insert beneficially in an increasingly competitive market. It is based on the common elements and focuses on the capacity of associations to concur in common proposals. The project is set up along three main lines of work:

1. a training and capacity development programme;
2. a system for research and generation of information; and,
3. a system for the dissemination of marketing information and communication, updated and easy to access, providing information about prices, customers, commercial policies, quality standards, market trends and consumers preferences. This will ease the way for the small agricultural producers in the nine associations to find new markets for their products and by-products.

The project intends to provide training to leaders and producers of the four member associations of ACLO and intends to help capacity development. Its goal is to generate marketing information to be disseminated afterwards by the mass media. For this, ICT will be used. All the actions that this project intends to undertake are focused on helping the organisational and economic development of the producers in the area served by the project.

Thanks to the project, organised producers are able to enhance the conditions of productive planning and the insertion of their products in the market since they gain access to relevant information and timely communication concerning productive processes and markets. In this way, producers obtain a better profitability and financial return when they sell their agricultural products and by-products.

The purpose of the project is to provide the commercial organisations and municipal governments with an effective means of development and strengthening of their capacity of marketing, negotiation and commercial promotion. For this, ICTs will be used to strengthen and develop their organizing capacity and their participation in the management processes of agricultural marketing.

Analysis of monitoring and evaluation indicates that 60% of the participating farmers feel more aware about the use of ICT and empowered to negotiate better with intermediaries.

Almost 50% of the farmers perceive a direct improvement in their income. Estimations of the increase in income are found around 10%, representing an increase in annual income of US$ 100.

Economic indicators show that the percentage of farmers perceiving impact were lower in 2007 than in 2006. A possible explanation for this decrease can be found in the effect of the current political, social and economic crisis that is affecting the country and that has had an enormous impact on the sector. On the other hand, political instability and environmental problems have compelled technicians to reduce their support to the producers and this has resulted in a lack of motivation, in fewer training opportunities and less communication for the provision of effective support to the producers.

Read more about IICD's approach towards Livelihoods.

Like in any other sector, users in the agricultural sector have benefited from training opportunities according to their particular needs. 73% of the users declare to be very satisfied with the quality of the training received. Technical support is particularly important for self development and, when asked about the project staff, 68% of them affirm to be very satisfied.

Projects provide for the development of a series of information services available to the users. 93% of them declare to be very satisfied with these services as the projects have enabled them to meet their objectives. Information about prices, about national and international markets and about new production techniques that have showed them how to become more productive are some of the services obtained through the Internet, through VHF/UHF radios, the local radio, the telephone, etc.

A high percentage of the users are not satisfied with the Internet service. Up to now, access has been very problematic and communication very limited. The Internet has not reached the communities yet, despite the efforts made by the projects. Connectivity costs are very high and impossible to sustain. Users ask for the project technical staff to make more visits and follow-up activities.

There is still a shortcoming that needs to be corrected and it is the participation of women in the projects. Only 30% of the users are women. This problem remains a very important challenge for the Bolivian programme.

The ACLO (Fundación Acción Cultural Loyola) Foundation supports the productive, commercial and organisational development of small farmers in the Chuquisaca Region in Bolivia.