Improving Agricultural Market Performance:
Developing Agricultural Market Information Systems
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 Farmers tend to rely more on informal networks including consulting peers in the
community and/or phoning up traders they usually sell for information on prevailing
prices in rural and urban markets.
 Traders usually consult and/or observe their counterparts for updates on prices in the
markets in which they trade as well as phone up agents in rural markets.
 Warehouse operators for crop output forecasts they “drive through familiar fields and
observe” and/or consult leaders of farmers’ groups and their field agents. They also
consult traders on prices in rural and urban markets.
 Banks: require market information, including crop output forecasts in appraising loan
applications and also monitoring repayment, especially where credit is secured with
crop inventories, the value of which has to be tracked on a regular basis. Rather than
obtain information independent sources, they tend to rather rely on their clients who
may be borrowers or, where possible, on staff at branch offices, who may have been
involved in the approval and/or monitoring loans. This is largely because of lack of
confidence in the information published by the existing MIS.
 Policymakers: a good number of policymakers consulted did not also utilise data
published by MIS providers, except where they are directly involved in projects related
to the MIS platforms. The notable exceptions are officials of NAADS, who require the
information as part of the extension advice they provide to farmers.
The most active users of the existing MIS are development practitioners who are engaged in
work on food security issues at national and/or regional levels such as the staff of WFP and
USAID. These officials obtain information, especially from FEWSNET, as well as track data
published by existing national and regional MIS platforms in order to assess emerging food crisis
and plan their response in collaboration with the government. The WFP, for instance, publishes
a Monthly Market Monitor, which summarises key developments in terms of prices and flows
within the regional markets. They also track local prices for purposes of assessing the food
supply situation in the country. USAID also undertakes similar reviews sourcing information
from the main platforms identified in Section 7.3.2.The low level of utilisation of theMIS platforms appears to have less to dowith the dissemination
technology adopted and more to do with content and timeliness and the discussions below
demonstrate. For instance, though dissemination via mobile phones was expected to increase
accessing of MIS by farmers and trader, this was not observed in Uganda. Rather these players
are phoning directly to obtain the same information from informal sources such as peers.
Speaking to an official of UCDA, she indicated that mobile phone dissemination was the least
popular among users of its MIS. From the consultations with stakeholders, among the main
weaknesses with the existing MIS in Uganda is the issue of gaps in the information disseminated.
These gaps include the following:a.Trend analysis is often missing: Most of the data reported represent nominal prices
prevailing in the markets. It was suggested that analysis of trends will be more helpful to
users as it can indicate the direction of movement of prices and inform their marketing or
procurement strategies. There isn’t enough of this in Uganda, except the regional and