Improving Agricultural Market Performance:
Developing Agricultural Market Information Systems
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AgriNet’s offline commodity trading is linked to major grain storage, processing and end-use
companies such as the following:Agroways Uganda Ltd – a local grain warehouse operator and marketing company.
Sunrise Commodities – local grain traders and millers.
Nile Breweries – local brewery which utilises locally-produced maize and sorghum.
The WFP – a leading buyer of grains in Uganda for local and regional relief operations
(the latter including supplies to South Sudan, Kenya and Tanzania).
Mombasa millers – a major Kenya-based grain milling company which imports grains
from Uganda.
Busia Produce Market – major border market for grain exports fromUganda into Kenya.
Some local medium-scale maize millers.
All the major grain buyers trading with AgriNet require quality grains, especially the brewery
and WFP. The only exception is buyers in the Busia Produce Market and the medium-scale grain
millers. Though premiumprices are offered for quality grains, this is neither reported by AgriNet
as well as the other MIS providers in Uganda. One of the effects of non-reporting of quality-linked
grain prices is that farmers and grain assemblers have no informed basis for computing net gains
from adopting postharvest crop handling practices which ensure delivery of quality produce. As
a result, Uganda is missing out on important grain opportunities at the regional level and also to
WFP. Onumah and Baine (2015) estimate that Uganda is losing about US$ 65 million per year
because of its inability to take advantage of this market opportunity due to lack of compliance
with set quality standards.
7.2.3 INFOTRADE: NATIONAL PRIVATE PROVIDER
Infotrade is also a private provider which emerged in 2008 as a joint project initiated between
FIT Uganda and the Agricultural Sector Programme Support (ASPS) supported by DANIDA. It
collects and disseminates price information on a range of crops and livestock including market
reports covering weekly average prices for various commodities; offers/bids for selling and
buying commodities; analysis of price changes during the week; and weather bulletins.Markets covered in the collection of price data are similar to those covered by FARMGAIN and
AgriNet. Dissemination is via mobile phones, radio, website and postings on notice boards at
the selected markets and district offices of Infotrade (Box 10). The format used in presenting
prices is shown in Table 11. Prices are reported per kilogramme based on estimated average
weight of traditional volumemeasures. This approach is a source of error in price data reporting.
Box 10: Provision of Agricultur l P ice Information via M bile Phone by Infotrade, UgandaUsers can request price information by texting the keyword PRICE; then COMMODITY and then
the name of the location and send to 8555. For example send PRICE, BEANS and MASAKA to
8555.
Registration is also through the same platform and entitles users to receive specified
information (i.e. by commodity) on a weekly basis.
Source