Improving Agricultural Market Performance:
Developing Agricultural Market Information Systems
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Scope and Justification of StudyThis study was commissioned to assess the extent towhich MIS inmember countries of OIC have
achieved set objectives such as facilitating trade decisions by players in agricultural value
chains; improvingmarket transparency; enhancing the bargaining power of, especially, farmers;
and providing policymakers and researchers with valuable material. The study aimed to provide
an overview and mapping of current MIS in OIC member countries; identify and elaborate
options for policy recommendations to improve agricultural market performance through the
use of MIS; and to recommend suitable indicators to allow policymakers to monitor MIS and its
use in decision-making support for agricultural and trade policies. The methodology adopted
included a review of the literature on MIS; an online survey targeting users and providers of MIS
services across the globe; and three cases studies involving field visits to Egypt, Indonesia and
Uganda.Based on the basic definitions by CTA (2012) and others such as Staatz et al., (2014), agricultural
Market Information Systems (MIS) is defined in the study as systems which have been set up for
gathering (or collecting), processing (including analysing) and disseminating market-related
information to various actors in agricultural value chains. The primary expectation is that the
information provided to value chain actors such as farmers (producing various crops and
livestock), traders and processors will inform their investment, marketing and other enterprise-
related decisions. It is different from marketing information which, as defined by (Shepherd
1997), provides details on potential market channels and information which enables sellers and
buyers to access them including payments systems, packaging and quality requirements. It is
also not the same as Market Information Service, which can be described as the service of
providing market information, with emphasis on the delivery of information to target
stakeholders (CTA 2015).The main justification for the study is the fact that agriculture is of strategic importance in the
economies of most members of the Organisation for Islamic Cooperation (OIC). According to a
recent report, total agricultural output by OIC member countries in 2015 represented 21% of
the world’s agricultural production and the sector employed 23% of the global agricultural
labour force (COMCEC, 2017). The contribution of agriculture to GDP varies across the major
regional groups. The Asian Group lead the rest of the OIC member countries in terms of
agricultural output. In 2015 total agricultural output from the Asian Group was valued at 363
US Dollars and represented over 50% of total production by the member countries. The share
of agriculture in the GDP of Pakistan was about 24%, whilst that of Nigeria was 20.6% and
contribution to GDP in Turkey and Mali were 7.6% and 8.5% respectively.
Conclusions from Evidence GeneratedEvidence from the mapping of MIS in developing countries shows that the systems in both non-
OIC and OIC member countries have followed a similar trajectory of advancing from the mainly
government-run First Generation MIS (1GMIS) to the more ICT-intensive Second Generation
(2GMIS). This evolution was driven partly to reduce the cost of service delivery, especially in the
dissemination of information; improve the timeliness of delivery; and also enhance the accuracy
of reported data by minimising human intervention in data entry and processing. Advances in