Improving Agricultural Market Performance:
Developing Agricultural Market Information Systems
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5.2 MAPPING EXISTING MIS IN EGYPT
The main agricultural MIS in Egypt is run by the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation.
Much of the existing system MIS seems to be derived from a long history of donor projects in
different sector ostly USAID funded. Examples include theMarket Information Project (MIP),
the Cotton Sect romotion Programme (CSPP) and the Agricultural Transfer and Utilisation
Project (ATUP . The focus is mainly on the collection and dissemination of basic price
information for ategic commodities gathered daily in the key Cairo wholesale markets. The
Ministry collect ice data from various governate markets around the country and distributes
this through fax. To date, the prices collected are not related to market arrivals and no supply
data is collected or disseminated at this level.Dissemination is done by notices in newspapers and through a ‘banner’ on the Agricultural News
TV channel which airs daily. Government-run openmarkets are expected to display these prices.
Some wholesale markets have websites that display these prices. A government-run mobile
phone-based information system has been proposed but is not yet functional. This government
system is mostly for fruit and vegetables. There is no similar system for livestock or livestock
products, but Macfadyen et al (2012) reports on two real-time price information systems for
aquaculture products (see Box 6).
Box 6: Aquaculture Price Information in Egypt
Source: Macfadyen et al (2012)Several specific value chains were discussed with respondents during the value chain analysis
and are summarised in this section. Egypt has a large, mostly informal dairy sector. Most milk
is marketed in raw form by informal market agents and prices vary along and across chains. El-
Amaiem (2014) argues that the complexity of the Egyptian milk marketing system and absence
of policy frameworks is exacerbated by the paucity of market information for producers and
calls for government intervention to set prices and standards. This type of view is fairly typical
of many government officials in Egypt and was reflected in a number of the interviews for this
case study.
19 Described in Erich and Fawzy, 2002. There are many more: see for example Christiansen et al (2011), Annex A.
Fish farmers rely primarily on information provided by traders and other farmers. This is
done by phone calls to knowledgeable farmers or from the official local government market
prices. For example El-Obour market in Cairo (www.obourmarket.org.eg Nb: website no
longer working when this report was written). This website historical and 1 – 2 day old prices
for major markets, minimum and maximum daily prices, method of sale (e.g., in box) and
grades.Another source of information was claimed to be the General Authority for Fish Resource
Development (GFARD – www.gfard.org). It was reported that even though fish farms are often
close to markets, farmers are unaware of the daily volumes traded in those markets or about
where their product goes after it has been sold from the farm.The authors of the report concluded that the general availability of price informationwas good
through the value chain, but that key elements were missing such as volumes, prices of
competing products and export prices.