Improving Agricultural Market Performance:
Developing Agricultural Market Information Systems
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• Case studies involving mapping of national and regional systems; as well as an assessment
of the performance of the existing MIS against the expectations of various stakeholders,
including producers, traders, warehouse operators, banks, donor/development agencies,
governments and other actors. Evidence from the selected case countries is to be collected
through field visits to the countries. The country visits lasted between 5 to 7 days. The
selection of case study countries was intended to optimise the likelihood of gaining
knowledge of best practices, including prior information on a history of MIS in the target
countries. The selection was also done in a way as to ensure representativeness of the
regional groupings of OICmember countries, in particular ensuring that there are cases from
the following countries: Arab, Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. The selected case countries are
below:- Egypt: Egypt has a public sector-based MIS and others which emerged from donor
initiatives in developing such systems in the country. There is particular interest in
exploring how the system enables policymakers to manage the country’s reliance on
wheat imports. Egypt is also part of a global MIS run by the FAO and is a member of
the Mediterranean Agricultural Markets Information Network (MED-AMIN). The
MED-AMIN was set up to promote co-operation and experience sharing between
national agricultural information systems of the CIHEAM member states (i.e. the
International Centre for Advanced Mediterranean Agronomic Studies). CIHEAM is
an inter-governmental organisation which has been in existence since the early
1960s to promote sustainable agriculture, fisheries and food security.
- Indonesia: Indonesia was considered one of the early leaders in best practices in
MIS as noted by Giovannucci (2001). The country has MIS for various commodities,
most notable for horticultural produce.
- Uganda: The country has a long history of MIS for a range of crops, including
especially maize, which is an important staple crop in Eastern and Southern Africa.
It also has MIS operated by the private sector, often with funding by donor agencies
and sometimes linked to public sector players. Market players can also access a
range of regional MIS covering not only price information but also weather
information and regional trade flows in agricultural commodities.