Improving Agricultural Market Performance:
Developing Agricultural Market Information Systems
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7.4 FURTHER EVOLUTION OF 2GMIS IN UGANDA One of the innovative MIS which has just emerged in the Uganda landscape is Mobipay. It is an
advanced, private 2GMIS with the features below which are also illustrated in Figure 41: A database of farmers including biodata details as well as GPS coordinates of farms and
plot sizes. This facility makes it possible to link farmers to inputs suppliers to facilitate
the acquisition of quality inputs. It is also possible to monitor crop performance during
gestation, using the type of remote-sensing technology described in Box 4 (see Chapter
3 Section 3.6.1).
 The participating farmers are mainly smallholders, cultivating an average of 2 hectares.
They there aggregate their produce using Village Aggregation Centres (VACs). Stocks
delivered through the VACs as also monitored by Mobiday, with the data being collected
by field officers, who include government extension officers as well as field staff of
aggregators (traders) working in the community.
 The bulked produce is delivered to licensed warehouse operators who issue electronic
warehouse receipts (EWRs), which provide details such as the quantity (in weight) and
quality of the product deposited. A record of these details is maintained by the Uganda
Warehouse Receipt SystemAuthority (UWRSA), which regulates the receipt system and
authorises issuing of the EWRs.
 The stored commodity is traded either directly to a buyer or through the newly-
established Uganda National Commodity Exchange (UNCEX). In cases the trade is
through UNCEX, the EWRs are transferred to buyers through licensed brokers and
payment made through clearing banks appointed by the exchange. The clearing bank
then channels payment through Mobipay to the seller (farmer or farmers’ group).
Where trade is directly to a trader or commodity exporter, the payment can either be
channelled through a bank appointed by the farmers’ group or directly through Mobipay
to the sellers.
 The system of channelling payments through banks and/or Mobipay, makes it possible
for who pays through other key actors as part of the MIS platform. This makes it possible
for formal lenders to recover loans directly, thereby minimising the risk of loan default.
This risk is further minimised through the monitoring crop performance by Mobipay.
Postharvest finance is provided using deposited stocks, which is monitored by the
UWRSA, as the collateral.
 Farmers on the Mobipay database obtain price information via mobile telephones. The
same information is shared with banks, enabling them to compute the value of pledged
commodities at the time of lending. Lenders are also able to monitor that value of the
collateral on the basis of price information made available on a daily basis.
It is evident from the review of the Mobipay system that it is not simply the provision of price
information which is making it beneficial to users, but also the linked crop monitoring and
payments services. However, as at the time of this study, the price information disseminated
was based not on actual transactions but on price levels in the general informal market. One