Improving Agricultural Market Performance:
Developing Agricultural Market Information Systems
5
groups should coordinate and rationalise the information collection and dissemination
process in order to optimise efficiency. Furthermore, the quality of information
provided and its relevance to target users should be regularly reviewed.
f. Aligning agricultural trade, market development and food security policies and
implementation can optimise the benefits from MIS: Pursuit of food security
objectives aimed at moderating short-term food price shocks tends to lead to
marginalisation of long-term agricultural market development goals. Efforts are then
concentrated in promoting MIS and allied public institutions which facilitate
governments’ respond to food supply and price shocks. The downside is marginalisation
of actions to develop MIS which meets the needs of market actors including producers,
traders and financiers. Furthermore, complementary market institutions are
underdeveloped, the exception often being in value chains for strategic agricultural
exports. The consequence is inefficient domestic markets for agricultural producewhich
lead to dampening of producer incentives and therefore cannot catalyse sustained
output growth in agriculture. This leads to dependence on imports even if favourable
agro-climatic conditions exist as is the case in many of the African and Asian Groups of
OIC member countries. Vulnerability to food supply and price shocks is deepened,
further reinforcing the cycle of short-term market interventions which stifle domestic
market development. A major policy shift, which ensures that food security objectives
and long-termmarket development goals are properly aligned will allowMIS to become
more effective in driving sector performance and reducing national vulnerability to food
insecurity. This option is highly recommended to governments and other stakeholders.
Further to the above and to enhance monitoring and evaluation of MIS by policymakers, we
recommend the following:(i) User satisfaction with the information provided should be regularly assessed.
User surveys represent one means in carrying out this assessment. It can be done at
relatively low-cost if users who access information via mobile phones are tracked (this
methodology was used in the case reported in Box 3). However, for most market players
the surveys conducted should not only rely on a quantitative methodology using a
structured questionnaire but also a more qualitative approach using semi-structured
questions. The experience from this study, especially the low but not unusually low
response rate informs this recommendation.
(ii)The quality, relevance and timeliness of information provided should be
particularly assessed. This may involve triangulating information provided by the MIS
platforms with available data and information from other sources. In particular,
assessing the relevance of the information need to be underpinned by baseline surveys
on the needs of the target stakeholders, allowing reviews to be properly benchmarked.
(iii) Cost-efficiency of service provision along with the effectiveness of governance
systems for MIS should be assessed: Cost-efficiency is critical, especially where
external funding is needed to sustain the MIS operation. A review of the
information/data collection, analysis and dissemination process can reveal
opportunities where, for instance, collaboration rather than duplication, can reduce the
overall cost to the economy of running MIS. In addition, the governance systems of the