Improving Agricultural Market Performance:

Developing Agricultural Market Information Systems

Figure 26: Satisfaction with Provision of Market Information

Source: Online Survey Findings

Some of the respondents indicated that the information provided was not sufficiently

comprehensive and that the providers did not have systems in place to capture the needs of the

target audience in order to tailor their services and products to meet those needs. Furthermore,

the respondents complained about the insufficient analysis of the nominal price data

disseminated, stressing that archived data which could even facilitate analysis by other parties

is often difficult to obtain.

The service providers who responded indicated that though their primary target audience are

farmers, traders and processors it is apparent that access tends to be dominated by

policymakers, academia and inputs suppliers. This may be partly due to complaints about the

reliability and timeliness of information provided, an issue that many of them appear to agree

with (i.e. from their responses). Sustainability or lack of sufficient funding appears to be one of

the most critical challenges facing the providers (Figure 27). None reported having achieved

sustainability in the provision of MIS services and most of them reported are dependent on

grants from donors and government. The contribution of user fees in funding operations

appears rather marginal. The private providers who are less dependent on donor/government

grants are mainly those engaged in commodity trading and are therefore in a position to cross-

subsidise MIS provision. They do so as a means to generate additional commercial business.

Though some acknowledge the usefulness of an enabling regulatory framework, this did not

rank high among their demands.

When it comes to improving the functioning of MIS, almost 75% of the respondents stated that

an effective regulatory framework can play a contributory role in further improvements.

Specifically, many of the respondents suggest that enabling policies which government frame

for MIS should, for example, provide clear guidelines regarding standardisation of data

collection and dissemination in order to ease comparison of data from different MIS platforms

and to improve the interoperability. This will involve ensuring that data collection

methodologies are sufficiently standardised to allow for data comparisons as would the means

32%

28%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Very satisfied

Satisfied

Neutral

Dissatsified

Very dissatisfied