Improving Agricultural Market Performance:
Developing Agricultural Market Information Systems
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Figure 4: Report on Staple Cereals Wholesale Prices in Selected Markets in Ethiopia
Source: WFP Ethiopia Monthly Market Watch, May 2017According to Rashid and Lemma (2010), this coordinated approach has enhanced the capacity
of the Government of Ethiopia in managing food supply and price shocks. However, a brief
review of the existing MIS by Wolday Amha (2014) shows that utilisation of the information by
farmers, traders and other market actors is rather marginal. This is partly because the main
trend analysis which is reported (as in Figure 4 above) is aimed at an assessment of the food
situation by policymakers and appropriate policy-level response in case a food crisis is
imminent. The report is not tailored to transactions-related needs of market players and being
a monthly makes it also less relevant for such a purpose in terms of timing.
3.3.2 ETHIOPIA’S EXCHANGE-LINKED MIS FOR EXPORT CROPS In contrast to the above, the principal aim of the MIS run by the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange
(ECX) is to provide up-to-date information to the market players. The ECX, which was set up
with contributions from members as well as public funding, has mainly been trading export
crops such as coffee, sesame and pulses. The price information it disseminates are mainly the
prices which are transparently discovered during the trading activities on its floor (illustrated
in Table 2). The ECX also publishes price trends (Figure 5) as well as prices in the major terminal
markets for commodities such as coffee. It must be noted that ECX only trades spot contracts
and does not offer any futures contracts for trading on its floors.