Esoko

Kwesi Acquah, Building Technology in Ghana

2011-12-26T15:14:00.000Z

Esoko, 2011, Accra, Ghana

The mere mention oftechnology brings to mind names like Berlin, Singapore, Basel, Bangalore andthe famous Silicon Valley, to name but a few. Most of the world’s besttechnologies were conceived and brought forth in one of these hubs, and quiteobviously the consumption of these technologies has also not been limited toonly these areas or the countries in which they were developed.

Developing countrieslike Ghana have benefited immensely from technology transfer from these techhubs. We use technology to help organize our lives, have fun, be inspired,communicate, and it has become a definitive part of life in our cities. In rural communities, mobile rates are risingso quickly that no one can keep track. Without even needing statistics, thefact that most of our grandmothers have called us on a mobile phone tells thestory of change.

But there is nothingbetter than identifying local problems, using modern means to carve out asolution and using local resources to develop technologies to solve that problem. To me that is just the storyof Esoko, and we’re living it every day.

Esoko identified the needs in the agricultural industry in Ghana and is growing based on thoseobservations and feedback from the market. What we’re finding is that projects andbusinesses all over Africa - and even beyond Africa in Asia and South America -need the same tools we’re building here. If our team of 65 can outsource Ghanaiantechnology around the globe, we’ll know we’ve made it.

Like other technologybased companies in Ghana and Africa, Esoko vividly demonstrates what the newgeneration in Africa is capable of – a great resource pool that can pull offanything. We’re very proud to be at thecenter of it all.

I asked a fewcolleagues what the one word they think of is when they think about what we’redoing at Esoko. Here’s what they came up with:

Transformation. Helping. Creation. Disrupt. Diversify. Proving. Leading. Exciting. Innovation. Solving. Ingenius. Information. Ideas. Experience. Challenging. Fun. Dynamism.

Nicole Hildebrandt, Teach a Man to Text

2011-11-30T11:21:00.001Z

Nicole Hildebrandt is a New York University/Center for Technology and Economic Development doctoral student working on a randomized control trial (RCT) on Esoko in Ghana. These are notes after her recent experience training farmers with the Esoko team. Thanks to CTED for the repost.

Nicole observing farmers write a text message

As a (late) twenty-something from the US, I’ve basically grown up using a mobile phone, so it’s hard for me to understand how people can not know how to send a text message (come on, mom, it’s not that hard!). I think most people in my age cohort – and certainly all those high school and college kids out there who seem to be able to text without even looking at the screen – feel the same way. Which was why I got some funny looks a few weeks back when I told friends that I was going to Ghana to help teach the farmers in our Esoko RCT how to send and receive a text message.

“You really have to teach a class on that?”

It turns out that, yes, the rural farmers in our study did indeed need a class on texting. Although cell phones are pervasive in Ghana, and have been for quite some time, it seems that many rural farmers have an extremely limited understanding about the functionality of their mobile phones. Some statistics to give you a sense of the problem: of the 40 farmers that attended our final training session in Krachi West, 100 percent used their phones to make voice calls. But less than one-quarter had ever written a text message, and less than one-third knew how to open and read a message sent to them by someone else.

This is real challenge for anyone who wants to try to introduce a mobile phone-based innovation in the developing world. In addition to tackling illiteracy and the multiplicity of local languages, one needs to make sure there is sufficient “tech literacy” so that the intended user base can actually utilize the product. This isn’t a groundbreaking realization, but it’s something that I don’t hear enough about in the tech-for-development sphere. Sure, there is lots of talk about the importance of simplicity in application development, but even that presumes a very basic knowledge of mobile phones (like, knowing what an Inbox is) that may not exist in many populations.

Miranda Pabby from Esoko showing how to navigate the phone menu

It’s a challenge without any “easy” solutions. I saw this first-hand at the Esoko training sessions I observed last month. In the four-hour training sessions for the treatment group, the first three hours were devoted to Cell Phones 101 (how to navigate the menu, add a contact, check in Inbox, draft a message, and finally press “Send”). Only the last hour was spent discussing the actual content of the Esoko messages, and how to use the information to obtain higher prices…and that was by far the portion of the training that was easiest for people to absorb.

Of course, a three-hour lesson isn’t enough to ensure that all of the farmers in our study will have the knowledge base to take advantage of the Esoko service. Thankfully, Esoko has developed a phone-in help line available free to users, and they have a wide network of market enumerators that are available to farmers for additional help if needed. All of this support increases the chances that farmers will be able to access and use the Esoko price information to make better-informed marketing decisions. I wonder whether (and certainly hope that) other mobile-phone based applications in the developing world have similar supports in place to help address “tech illiteracy” among their user base.

Farmers from Nkwanta South at the training

Click here to read more on the research NYU is doing on Esoko in Ghana.

Kwesi Asiamah Acquah, The Real ICT4D

2011-10-26T16:11:00.000Z

Fresh back from an Esoko farmer training session, Kwesi Asiamah Acquah shares his experience...

We've trained a lot of farmers in Ghana now, and each place brings with it new discoveries and new stories. It’s now the turn of the Dangbe East and Akuapem South District farmersto start creating theirs. The program is being made possible through an Esoko-MTNpartnership, dubbed “Farmer First”, which will see the Ghanaian and African communicationsgiant sponsoring hundreds of rural farmers to receive price alerts ontheir mobile phones. Proposed benefits? Empowerthe farmers with information to bargain better for their produce and enable them to find other markets where they can sell for higher returns. Those changes should increase farmer revenue and improve livelihoods.

But there is a lot of work that must be done to make this happen, and along the way, all I could think in my mind is "this is the real ICT4D". Though we make amazing technology at Esoko, it takes profiling, training, an understanding of market dynamics and a great deal of time to make sure the benefits of that technology are discovered. These trainings are where the real action is.

Information

To determine theirinformation needs and better tailor the alerts, Esoko profiled a section ofpineapple farmers in those districts. In Fotobi and Oboadaka, both communities inthe Akuapim South District, farmers sang the same information deficit songwhich others were singing prior to receiving Esoko alerts. All the farmersindicated a general lack of information concerning their agriculturalpractice. While they indicated that theyget information from their association and from the Ministry of Agriculture, they also expressed howthe information is of little importance especially as far as the marketing ofthe produce is concerned. All of the farmers in the community do not know the pricesof pineapples in the bigger markets like Techiman, Kumasi and Takoradi wheremost of their traders come from. They are rewarded with GHS .30 (20 US cents) perpineapple by these traders and processors who come to buy their produce.

The frustration of these farmers can be summed up in the statement of Moses Gatogo, a pineapple farmer in the Oboadaka community: “We sit here and they come and tell us how much they want to give to us, and we can’t say anything because we don’t know. And if we don’t sell too, our pineapples will go bad”.

Mobilephone use

All these famers havemobile phones, and have been using them for more than three years. However, theprimary use for the device is as a means communication but not as a source ofinformation. Some of these farmers have never sent an SMS before. This is wherethe Esoko training is very crucial. Esoko trains farmers on sending, checkingand interpreting the messages they will receive, and this takes patience. There is no 'quick fix' or magic bullet in ICT4D.

My experience

I had read of stories of traders paying lowprices for farmers’ produce, but had never had first hand information from afarmer. The mention of GHS .30 forone pineapple sent mixed feelings within me. On one hand, I was thinking Icould make some good money if I started trading in pineapples. And then Istarted thinking of whether the toil of the farmer for over one year is worth GHS .30. It felt disheartening when Irecollected that the lady close to our office in Accra sells one of the medium sized pineapplesfor GHS 2.00 (1.30 USD)! These farmers are reallyworking for close to nothing, and I believe the intervention will make them seefarming as more of a business than a lifestyle.

Gathering further information from thesefarmers, we realised the most expensive household asset most of them had waseither a bicycle or a motorcycle. I askedone farmer: “So you mean apart from the spraying machine for your farm youdon’t have any household asset?” He answered, “Oh, I have a radio”. “Just that?” was the only thing that couldcome out of my mouth. While there are other stories explaining this phenomenon,it makes basic sense that given more income farmers can purchase more itemsthat can make their lives more lively. As in many other villages in Ghana, mostof the houses are constructed with mud.

For some farmers, this is going to be thefirst time a text message is going to mean something to them and I am seriouslylooking forward to this myself. Indeed this is going to be challenging forthose who can neither read nor write. But it was exciting to hear from these farmers that they have relatives who can read and explain messages to them. Forthose who can read and write but have never sent an SMS, I gather that thiswill not just be a training on reading and interpreting Esoko price alerts, butalso an education on a technology that can be used to source for informationand exchange ideas in a community where the internet and television arefuturistic channels. This is a slow but hopeful step on the road to real development.

Mark Davies, Part III: The MIS Industry

2011-09-13T15:15:00.000Z

This is Part Three of a series brought to us by Mark Davies - market information obsessed anthropologist & technologist (and incidentally the founder/CEO of Esoko)

Aside from the conversation about what MIS can do and about where content comes (or doesn't come) from, there are actually a lot of interesting new technologies emerging and being used in Africa. It's fascinating to see considering how void the space was just one decade ago.

These technologies have the capability to transform how agriculture is managed. And in the end it will be a win-win for everyone involved since agriculture is so stupendously expensive and inefficient. Africa is importing billions of dollars of food every year. Few grades and standards, lack of inputs, and little visibility and information flow across the supply chain come together to create the situation as we know it. And because of it companies are scared to invest; they're even scared to source locally. New technologies can make agricultural smarter, leaner, and more efficient. They can also empower everyone to act more like a decision-maker based on choice and options than a passive producer in the field.

Again, I would argue that most of the current confusion about if Market Information Systems can 'work' arise because we’re in a transitional phase. Just as commercial space travel is now possible due to smarter and cheaper technologies, so too is market information now accessible and manageable through a new set of tools. This is not only the mobile phone, but also a growing and maturing penetration of networked people and places throughout rural communities--cybercafés, GPRS phones, and radio all have a key role in reducing the cost of disseminating this type of information. It's also the emergence of a new class of technologists across Africa, either local or imported, that bridge more developed software communities with the emerging ones and are able to launch increasingly relevant, usable and appropriate solutions. M-Farm, Muddy Boots, FrontlineSMS, Ushahidi, SourceTrace, txteagle, CKW, Logistimo, EpiCollect, Helveta, Indaba, e-Choupal, RapidSMS, and Dimagi to name a few. It’s an impressive list and is beginning to look like an industry of market discovery serving all types of customers across the sector. And it's just that...the beginning.

Mark Davies, Part II: Content is King

2011-08-08T17:12:00.010Z

This is Part Two of series brought to us by Mark Davies - market information obsessed anthropologist & technologist (and incidentally the founder/CEO of Esoko)

New initiatives have emerged focussed on the tools, but lack the content...

The lack of very local digital content is acute in Africa and is one reason even Google’s strategy is challenged here. Google Trader (among others) have offered cool new technologies, but without any real content they're just not being used. So new technology makers are reluctantly but inevitably drawn into collecting content. It's difficult to not assume the two must go hand in hand.

As these new projects emerge, pushed into building both the tools and the content, they are seen as ‘private’ Market Information Systems – and it's assumed that they're only driven by profits. But it’s critical here to understand that most of these innovations are actually focussed on the technology, and can realistically accommodate any kind of content – private or public. A small business or a government, a multi-national or an NGO project. In short, we need a more rigorous distinction between tool providers and content providers.

And we should also recognize that content can come from a multiple number of sources. Isn’t that the lesson we’ve learned over the last ten years? That content provided by your neighbour may be equally or even more relevant than that provided by your government, or by CNN. Twitter and Facebook have given us, our friends and our peers, a voice. Technology in this sense is content. And it’s only the way we filter it that becomes relevant. Can't we create or define or change our 'filter bubbles' to serve our needs, and allow us to choose which source, which flavour, which relevance we have?

The MIS world hasn’t yet moved where we’ve all moved to...that we all have a voice, and the tools allow us to 'slide the volume control' on one or the other dialog, hopefully creating interesting feedback to the content that the market really wants. Voting with your fingers as it were. If the MIS community could recognize that they need each other, and separate functions clearly, we may have a more coherent approach and understanding.

Click here to continue to Part III...

Mark Davies, Part I: History & Technology

2011-07-19T10:02:00.018Z

This is Part One of series brought to us by Mark Davies - market information obsessed anthropologist & technologist (and incidentally the founder/CEO of Esoko)

Recently at a UNECA workshop in Addis I was challenged by Vincent Fautrel of CTA (the Centre for Agriculture and Rural Cooperation ACP-EU) about Esoko's strategy. I had been talking about the new products and services that we were planning to introduce to serve businesses and organizations, and Vincent wondered whether or not Esoko would continue to serve the needs of smallholder farmers. It’s a valid question. The reason I think it’s worth writing about here is because I think buried within that question are key issues about market demand, product vision and the evolution of MIS, so I wanted to pull out a few threads and pick them up here.

Vincent was also surprised to hear me talk about this as an ‘industry’, and questioned the validity of that term. But I’m convinced more than ever that there is an industry of information products serving agricultural communities expanding quickly in Africa. It’s exciting, confusing and we’ve got very few points of reference to guide us as we navigate through this period of innovation and disruption.

So why does the community still remain so poorly documented, and so clearly misunderstood? Even by those of us practicing within it? I would suggest there are two areas that are confusing us and we need to think big about both: history and technology.

The history of MIS to most practitioners has been one of governments sending out enumerators to collect prices. This has mostly been done on paper, by fax and over the phone. The data is not particularly time sensitive, and can take weeks to get into a ‘central repository’. The latter may be an excel sheet or filing cabinet in the ministry. The customer here is really government, seeking production and price statistics for planning, policy and food security. A price that is a week old is almost non-commercial by definition. So MIS to date have mostly been run (in Africa) by public organizations with little focus or accountability to the market itself. The content itself is rarely seen or used by farmers or traders, and if it is, then mostly through radio or newspapers, where there is little opportunity to interact or respond to the content itself – key elements that go to ensure both the accuracy of the data and the excitement and motivation of those collecting it.

The argument goes that only the public sector can be trusted to collect prices and disseminate this fairly and justly to the populace and that no private company can be trusted… both in terms of motivation and in terms of accuracy. I think they are fair questions, but in my five years now of talking to traders, the very last people that they trust for commercial information is government. So there’s a disconnect. There’s a structural problem of relevance and accountability that’s just not built in. And the conceit of the governing mostly keeps them from asking the tough questions. Notable exceptions exist. Some include Rwanda, Sudan and Kenya who are beginning to show real commitment. But most public MIS systems are in decline or have vanished across the continent as budgets, votes, excitement, and impact seem not to materialize. It’s this history that we’ve inherited, and the community across Africa has a healthy dose of scepticism and cynicism in pushing more money into old models when the track record in African agric seems so poor. Prices haven’t really seemed to help farmers. Of course not! They were wrong and inaccessible! We’re seeing something very different in Ghana and are launching key studies this year with NYU and IFPRI and Cirad to prove it. We shouldn’t be defined by our history.

The second key point, and where both opportunity and more confusion arises, is the advent of promising and disruptive technologies. A number of individuals, organizations, projects and commercial businesses have recognized (for some years now) that placing a terminal into a large number of pockets that can accept low cost, easily customizable, storable and transferable data messages can disrupt the existing status quo. So for a few years we’ve seen initiatives emerge amongst technology enthusiasts to try and improve the way information is delivered. Notably Shaun Ferris’ work with Foodnet in Uganda and Daniel Anerose with Manobi in Senegal were some of the first innovations in mobile-based delivery of content. That opportunity is now clearly understood by most of us, but we’re still in a phase of working out who is the best to develop those technologies. They’re not as fast, cheap and easy as we all tend to think when we start, so projects, NGOs, and businesses all attempt to build their own software. This was the same with word processing in the 70s. But technologists emerge who understand the industry and realize there’s a win-win for all in building tools that everyone can use, and are happy with 80% of the features they thought they needed. And that's exactly where we are now.

Click here to continue to Part II...

Chinedu Okonkwo, Software Development in Africa

2011-05-25T13:56:00.028Z

A fast paced question and answer session with Chinedu Okonkwo, software engineer:

What do you work on at Esoko?

I work on the API (Application Programing Interface) of Esoko. The back end of the application. I mostly code in PHP & PL/SQL.

What led you to software development?

First and foremost, I've always had an interest in creating things--programming and computing let you make things happen in real time and you can see them happen right in front of you. I can bring things to life this way. It also feeds a hero's complex....I'm hoping that what I make can solve some of the problems I see around me.

Does it matter if software is made in Africa or in the West? What's the difference?

I believe that there are cultural dynamics between Africa and the West that are largely different. One example of this is that African culture is more passive, so your software has to assume that and be the active part for it to be effective. Esoko fits into this with with price alerts and bulk SMS - 'push' elements are super important. Reaching out to a user instead of a user reaching into the system.

We as Africans tend to go our of our ways sometimes to just copy the West, and it's much more interesting to use the same coding languages as the West but built things here, according to local needs.

What's the biggest misconception about African software development?

That Africa doesn't have the capacity to build it's own software. But that's crap.

A lot of software developers in Ghana are freelance. What are the benefits of working at a big company?

Working at a big company puts me in the position to prove the above misconception wrong. It takes a team to build world class software to solve a worldwide problems--I can't do it alone.

It also gets you out of the regular domain of IT, which is mostly corporate software & IT support, and gets you into web and public based platforms that have a much bigger reach.

You took a recent trip to Kumasi (in the center of Ghana) and talked to some Esoko users. What were the best and worst things about that trip?

The most shocking was definitely that a lot of businesses have no idea about information technology. It's a slow process. But the cool part is that we have a platform to solve a lot of their problems.

Connect, argue or commiserate with Chinedu on Twitter @codmajik

Cosmas Kombat, Why Traders are not Evil

2011-04-21T16:37:00.012Z

My name is Cosmas Kombat, and over the past 3 months I have been researching Market Information Systems (MIS), this particular one funded by GiZ/Market Oriented Agricultural Programme (MOAP) in partnership with Esoko to support maize traders in the Techiman market in Ghana. I wanted to share my new-found perspective on the relationship between traders and farmers.

Market Information Systems, over the past years, have been very useful in supporting businesses and value chains. But when we talk about MIS helping individuals, it is always targeted to small scale farmers. This of course makes sense, considering the information asymmetry that we always talk about--traders have more information than farmers, and they take advantage of that fact. But are we missing something? When I started the feasibility study on Techiman Maize Traders Cooperative Society, even I was a bit reluctant and not sure how traders could be supported with price and market information—especially to the detriment of farmers who are already disadvantaged.

During the study, it became clear that these maize traders were not the stereotype of the harm doing characters we always think of. The Maize traders in Techiman, who have been in the maize business for many years, have long standing contacts with maize farmers from around the villages in the middle belt of Ghana and even with some farmers in the north. These traders provide embedded services to the farmers and support their farming and business activities; these services include credit for inputs, advance payments, social support, extension services and marketing of the maize. Traders and farmers in this setting have a trust relationship and traders feel responsible to support farmers since most of their produce is bought from farm gates directly from these farmers.

Based on the relationship and long trust between the maize traders and the farmers in Techiman, we concluded that the right market information would do a lot of good to traders and farmers since there would be trickle down effect of benefits derived by traders to farmers and vice-versa. And I learned that we must be aware of the myriad of relationships that exist in the market; to keep our minds open about reaching out to traders and understanding their relationships with farmers a bit better.

Isaac Boateng; The Long Road to Reaching Farmers

2011-03-18T14:49:00.031Z

Hi I'm Isaac; that's me on the left in the Esoko orange. The really great thing about being part of Esoko’s Monitoring and Evaluation team is that I get to go to the field and interact with farmers. I feel this is unique about Esoko, because we don’t just sell services to customers but also regularly follow up to access the impact of those services. One recent trip was the post-training monitoring in the Market Oriented Agricultural Program (MOAP) in the central region of Ghana. In this program, Esoko is collaborating with the German International Development Cooperation (GIZ) to provide 200 farmers, mostly in the citrus and pineapple value chains, access to Esoko price information on their mobiles. Our visit was to measure the level of knowledge retention by farmers as well as the level of impact of Esoko market information on farmers businesses. Two things were clear:

1) Bringing farmers onto the Esoko service is not simple to achieve. That does not mean it's impossible, but we are realizing and learning all the time. Are training of trainers really successful (how much knowledge is really transferred)? How much prior mobile usage is necessary for farmers before using Esoko? How much training is necessary on not just how to access the market prices and understand them, but also to know how to act on that information? Do we have prices from the right markets? There is so much to learn and improve on to get this right, and we have to continue asking questions, being curious, and evolving as we go.

2) Though we face challenges and should continue to learn how to do better, we are actually beginning to see impacts. This trip revealed that knowledge in using SMS functions (sending and reading) had improved, and that Esoko helped to improve their agricultural businesses through enhancing negotiating power. Stories were recorded from farmers who, as a result of Esoko service, increased their sales revenue between 40–100%. One story was from Mustapha Korantsir (left), a pineapple farmer who was offered 25p (.16 cents) for each of his 2000 pineapples, but based on the price information on his phone saying that pineapples were selling for an average of 1.20 GHC (80 cents), he negotiated with the traders and got a price of 40 p (.27 cents). That's an increase of 60%. And as a result of these successes, the majority of the farmers interviewed affirmed their willingness to pay and continue with the service after the current GIZ intervention.

So our work in trying to reach smallholder farmers is far from over and far from easy, but we are inspired and excited by the possibilities. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us.

Isaac Boateng, March 2011

Bernard Otabil, Commodity Index Specialist

2011-02-04T12:24:00.049Z

Hi, my name is Bernard Otabil, and I led the launch of the first ever agricultural commodity index in Ghana. It’s known as the Esoko Ghana Commodity Index (EGCI), and it’s a market price index composed of data on physical commodities. The index tracks prices at two levels: the Esoko Ghana Commodity Index-Retail (EGCI-R) and the Esoko Ghana Commodity Index-Wholesale (EGCI-W). I wanted to share a bit about how to create a commodity index that informs the general public, as well as policy makers, about market trends in your country.

1) First, determine which markets and commodities should be used in the construction of the index. Consider the geographic importance of the markets, the size and the commodities traded in them. Also consider the importance of the commodities to be used, bearing in mind that staple foods or commodities that form a large component of the country’s consumer price index are the most interesting.

2) So now, you need market prices--how are you going to gather prices from these markets? Setup an enumeration process and procedures that ensure price collection on a regular basis, and on time. At Esoko we have trained enumerators who cover 34 markets in the country, collecting prices regularly and feeding them on to our platform using their mobile phones. You may setup a private system like ours, or you may leverage other networks that already collect data. Just make sure it is good, and consistent.

3) Before moving on, you have to determine what weights and measures you’re going to use for the commodities covered, remembering that you cannot just compare apples and grapes. As you would expect, there should be some level of standardization. We use standard measures of kilos and liters for most of the commodities we cover.

4) But what is the story behind these figures? Go beyond just collecting the prices and data to actually understand the market dynamics (what is accounting for the price movements?) Look at not only exceptions, but also normalities. In effect--editorialize it. Give the numbers a story.

5) Now you have to distribute the index. The first step is to make sure you get buy-in into the concept. No editor would except data from an organization that they cannot trust. So ensure that the index is launched as a media event, inviting media houses, getting the support of industry participants and practitioners, and making sure that you have the background information prepared about the construction of the index and what informs the details. Once that is done, you've got your list of media people who are ready, willing and prepared to distribute the index.

And there you go! Feel free to contact me and Esoko to find out more about setting up a Commodity Index in your country.

Mira Slavova, MIS Researcher

2010-12-09T13:42:00.018Z

My name is Mira Slavova and I am currently working as a researcher at the International Food Policy Research Institute, based in Ghana. I have a long-standing interest in market information systems, and particularly in information systems and ICT-enabled services, capable of streamlining agricultural value chains.

MIS as Intermediaries?

I prefer to consider the broad topics of Market Information Systems (MIS), Warehouse Receipts Systems and Commodity Exchanges in Africa within the context of the intermediation theory of the firm. According to this theory (see Spulber 1999), intermediaries emerge within the space of decentralized trade due to the encountered transaction costs. Firms providing agricultural market information (alongside other services) exist in Africa because decentralized exchange with agricultural commodities is plagued by transaction costs. Intermediated exchange emerges as a stable form of organization because intermediaries are able to economize on transaction costs and deliver net gains from trade, in excess of the gains obtainable from direct exchange.

The Difference between MIS, Warehouse Receipt Systems, and Commodity Exchanges

In considering MISs, Warehouse Receipt Systems and Commodity Exchanges as intermediaries, it is clear that some of these services are involved in more extensive intermediation than others. MISs often define their role purely as that of alleviating market price information asymmetries. MISs deliver mobile price information to farmers, leaving the bargaining and the details of the transactions to the farmers to sort out for themselves. To say the least, in the absence of consistent grading and sorting practices in many value chains in Africa, verifying the correspondence, between the quality of the commodities the price information refers to and the quality of the commodities being traded, becomes a non-trivial matter. By certifying the quality of the commodities and the identities of the buyers and sellers, Warehouse Receipt Systems go one step further in addressing the transaction costs present due to lack of communication between producers and buyers.

Commodity Exchanges go even further by providing an auction mechanism for reaching agreement on the terms of trade. As market-making intermediaries, they determine the mechanism of exchange and institutionalize that mechanism. Commodity Exchanges provide the market microstructure for the transactions between the buyers and the sellers. The market microstructure includes the details of the process through which the exchange occurs. By contrast, the market microstructure on which MISs rely tends to be the product of recurring, customary behaviors on behalf of the buyers and the sellers. The institutions governing their transactions are informal and based on relational norms, rather than formalized.

Reducing Communication Costs

In considering MISs, Warehouse Receipt Systems and Commodity Exchanges as intermediaries, it becomes clear that the differences among these market systems stem from the different transaction costs they are aimed at alleviating. Clearly, there can be numerous sources of transaction costs. The choice of a bundle of transaction costs which to be addressed is part of the strategic positioning of an intermediary. Within the complex social-business hybrid value chains, encountered within the agriculture sector of developing countries nowadays, communication costs can form a significant part of the transaction costs. Technology platforms such as Esoko enable, for-profit and non-profit organizations interested in streamlining agricultural value chains by acting as intermediaries, to address communication costs.

Torsten Herbst, Android Developer

2010-11-12T11:58:00.028Z

Hi I'm Torsten and I'm creating the new Esoko app for Android. I'm writing today to share a little bit about Android itself, and about why Esoko is (and everyone else should be) watching out for this next wave in mobile.

What exactly is Android?

Android is an operating system for smartphones developed by Google. Just like the operating system on your laptop or computer, Android provides the layer between your phone's hardware and the applications running on it. Android makes all the cool technologies packed into the new generation smartphones available to you. And there are lots of new technologies in these shiny devices: touch screens to allow you to interact with your phone, high resolution cameras to take pictures, GPS to pinpoint your location, mobile internet to stay connected, screens big and fast enough to play movies and multimedia content. Combine this with ample processing power and storage and you can do things on your phone that you haven't thought of previously, anytime, anywhere.

Why is it important?

As an open source operating system Android is available to any phone manufacturer for free, which has resulted in rapid adoption, innovation and fierce competition. There are already new Android phones out in Kenya for $100 and prices are coming down fast. So just as mobile phones came down in price over the last few years to be affordable for farmers in Africa, so will the new Android devices today. And as the number one selling smartphone operating system it will only be a matter of time before Android phones become available to traders and farmers across Africa at affordable prices.

Esoko & Android

With Esoko on Android you can browse the latest Esoko market prices on your phone, compare prices visually on a map and get in touch with Esoko sellers and buyers with the click of a button. You can be alerted whenever somebody posts an offer to sell maize in your location, you can see the latest market prices and charts in your area as soon as they become available, and you can upload prices, stock, offers, harvest information (this list is endless) into Esoko using the simple touchscreen interface.

Stay tuned for updates and if you have any ideas on how we can improve Esoko on Android, let me know.

Torsten Herbst

November 2010

Andrew Kpeleku, Enumeration Manager

2010-10-13T18:39:00.010Z

I'm Andrew Kpeleku, the Enumeration Manager at Esoko Ghana. That's me on the right, with our Techiman Enumerator, Sampson Aiyedum. Our department is responsible for the collection, upload and validation of data (prices, offers and profiles) from 31 markets across Ghana.

I spend many days in our office in Accra approving data and managing our enumerators, but I also get to go on market visits to see our enumerators throughout the year, and I’ve learned a lot over the years. Here are my top 6 enumeration tips for anyone wanting to collect data from the field:

1) Do basic research on markets

Before markets are set up, it’s prudent to find out the real distance to each market as well as the means to get there. Though the most common means to market areas is by road, water bodies might come one’s way (see my photo of the ferry I have to take to reach one of our markets here). Basic research helps managers plan and budget appropriately.

2) Hire the right people

The importance of accurate data collection must always guide managers in hiring. Experience has shown us here that part-time teachers are very well suited for enumeration jobs in the markets, as they tend to be more responsible and can also easily gain trust from market traders.

3) Don’t forget local measures

As local measures differ from market to market, commodities must be weighed and documented for price calculation. Harvest seasons of commodities also make it necessary to have commodities weighed at least twice in a year, if not more, as a newly harvested commodity found in the market is moisturous and weighs more than older harvests.

4) Keep strict quality control

In the case of a manager doubting any piece of data, the enumerator should be contacted. Esoko Ghana has also adopted a quality control mechanism where in each market covered there is a contact known as a “Market Agent,” who we randomly call to check the veracity of the data uploaded by our enumerators.

5) Incentivize your enumerators

Enumerators should be paid basic salaries for consistency, but by motivating them to meet their targets, incentives can be paid per data upload. When an enumerator hits his/her target a bonus can also be paid.

6) Make your enumeration team a community

As enumerators work in isolation in their respective markets, it's important for managers to stay in constant contact with them. Esoko Ghana organizes biannual meetings for enumerators to share ideas and experiences. This helps them feel part of the Esoko team.

Nuhu Sulemana, Researcher

2010-08-20T12:29:00.016Z

We're broadening our blog posts to not only share stories of end-users but also of other people that are in the Esoko family in one way or another. We're also letting them tell their experiences in their own voice...hope you enjoy.

Ghana, France, Denmark

My name is Nuhu and I’m working on Impact Studies with Cirad, an international research center for agricultural development. The studies are on the 2nd generation of Market Information Systems (MIS) that are emerging now, and mine is a case study of the Esoko MIS in Ghana. This research is important because we have to see the differences between 1st and 2nd generation MIS. We assume that 2nd generation (in the 2nd generation because of new mobile and internet technologies) have changed MIS and can actually reach the needed impact that MIS has always wanted to achieve. We are now collating data that we collected on the livelihoods and trading patterns of 600 farmers in Ghana, half of whom receive SMS messages from Esoko on prices and half of whom do not. We will then compare responses from the two categories to find out if our ideas about 2nd generation MIS are true or not.

It is so exciting to see people receiving SMS messages on their phones and making better decisions on where to sell and when to sell. What I saw was individuals using the information from the MIS and coming together to store their goods, or transport together, so they could make more money. We have a long way to go to spread this MIS to everyone but the fact that farmers are making requests and spending their own money to get the information really surprised me. I hope that my contribution to MIS research will tell the story in numbers too.

Nuhu Sulemana, August 2010

Jonathan Abudu, Smallholder Farmer

2010-06-18T13:56:00.008Z

Salaga, Northern Ghana

Jonathan cultivates yam tubers. When a buyer came to his small community quoting a very low price, Jonathon sent an SMS price request into Esoko. Realizing the prices in Accra were far higher, and that even paying transport he would make much more for his tubers if he sent them himself, he did just that. His 300 tubers, sold in Accra, gave him 104 extra Ghana cedis than what he would have made if he sold close to his farm. He says that using Esoko brings him confidence selling that he has never experienced before.

Chief Saaka Mahama, Farmer

2010-05-19T11:17:00.003Z

Outside of Salaga, Ghana

Chief Saaka Mahama, a village chief from Northern Ghana, has been negotiating better deals for his harvests using Esoko price alerts. He recently refused to sell to a buyer who came to his village to buy cashews--citing his Esoko SMS message about the current price in Yendi market, Chief sent him away empty handed. One week later, the buyer returned and bought at Chief's price, giving Chief an extra 100 cedis (70 USD).

Eric Poatab, Farmer

2010-04-14T18:49:00.003Z

Chamba, Northern Ghana

Eric Poatob uses Esoko to negotiate better prices with the dealer who comes to his village outside of Chamba. With additional income he's made since he started requesting market prices via SMS, he's been able to increase the size and output of his farm by periodically renting a tractor. He's also paid his tuition for a building construction course in Tamale Polytechnic so he can diversify his business activities and continue increasing his income.

Prosper Biche, Farmer

2010-03-01T12:31:00.003Z

Kpandai, Eastern Corridor, Ghana

Esoko users are able to use SMS price alerts to watch price trends and decide when to buy or sell their goods. In small farming communities, this can make a significant difference in revenue. Prosper, whose main crop is yam tubers, explains that difference.“Before Esoko we didn’t know the prices; we just sent our products when they are ready. Now we know the prices and also when to sell our products. Before, I sent my 100 tubers of yam to Accra and could get 20 Ghana cedis for it, now I check prices and go to Accra when prices are good. I could get up to 200 Ghana cedis for the same 100 tubers.”

Ama Prosper, Farmer

2010-01-19T18:28:00.002Z

Kpandai, Eastern Corridor, Ghana

Without knowing the prices in larger markets, Ama Prosper used to always sell her groundnuts in the local market, where she can only sell small quantities and for prices that she has no room to negotiate. For years, she went once a week during the local market day to sell a bowl (5-7 kg). "When you sell a bowl" she says "people measure it with their arm, they always cheat you". Now that she knows the prices for groundnuts in Accra from her Esoko SMS price alerts, she waits for someone she knows to go to Accra and sends along a Bag (100 kg) with them to sell, giving her higher profit and more peace of mind.

Nawagn Bugum, Smallholder Farmer

2009-12-03T12:19:00.001Z

Chamba, Northern Ghana

Nawagn Bugum, who himself does not have a mobile phone, often asks his brother to request prices from Esoko via SMS for him. After the last harvest of maize, he had 5 bags packed and ready to sell. With a request made by his brother, he knew that the prices in Ejura were 1.5 times higher than the local market prices. With the revenue of this deal made in Ejura, he was able to pay the national health insurance for himself and his family that had just expired.

Yahia Awad, MIS Manager

2009-08-13T10:36:00.003Z

Khartoum, Sudan

It seems that Yahia Awad, the MIS manager for FAO-Sudan's Northern Food Security Project (SIFSIA), has been on a clear trajectory in his career to get to exactly where he is today. After decades working inside the Northern Sudanese Ministry of Agriculture in various capacities and then years in the private sector at a large agricultural export company, Yahia has joined the SIFSIA team to lead the MIS component of the project, and most importantly, to make sure that the project becomes not only sustainable but also profitable in the end. His aim is to make the service unquestionably relevant for users across Northern Sudan so that in time there is a viable business in place; one that thrives because it is held accountable to the needs of its customers. His unique perspective and experience in the private sector help him to regard every decision and every bit of information with a different eye than most in his field. The success of any large MIS deployment is dependent upon, first and foremost, having a tireless and dedicated leader who has the ability to work with all facets of the local agricultural community with ease--farmers, traders, associations, businesses and government. In the very particular context of Northern Sudan this understanding is even more essential, and Yahia's experience and presence of mind make the future of MIS in Northern Sudan look promising indeed. Look for Esook (the Arabic Esoko) to go public with their MIS services by the end of this year, with Yahia quietly behind every strategic move.

Naujaven Dabydin, Feed Processor

2009-05-22T17:58:00.001Z

Antananarivo, Madagascar

As the Director of Operations for LFL in Madagascar, an animal feed company that generates about 100,000 tons of feed annually, Naujaven Dabydin can tell us a lot about the frustration companies face sourcing locally. Even though Naujaven and his company want nothing more than to buy from small farmers who are producing the maize, soya and minerals that the company needs to buy, those producers are largely inaccessible, nearly impossible to trace, and will break their contracts to sell to the highest bidder in the market if they feel it’s in their best interest. So LFL, along with many other companies, end up importing from all over the globe instead of buying locally, simply because they can’t rely on the quality, quantity and availability of goods coming from local markets. What LFL needs is production information in various regions, quantity of product harvested, and information on local weather-- Naujaven reminds us that truly useful market information goes far beyond prices and historical data, but rather needs to be more focused, real-time information coming directly from the field. LFL realizes that buying locally helps everyone, raising incomes for those that need it most, and to that end they offer technical advice to local growers through seminars, in-house trainings and outfield advisory services. But Naujaven and LFL still recognize that the only way to truly secure the market is to have a steady stream of real-time information coming from the field, from the producers themselves, not the other way around.

Omer El Dirani, Livestock Specialist

2009-02-19T15:13:00.002Z

Khartoum, Sudan

Omer El Dirani is Northern Sudan’s walking, talking encyclopedia of livestock knowledge. Beginning at a young age, Omer saw livestock not only as animal husbandry but also a fascinating mix of culture, tribes, attitudes and ancient behaviors. His particular panoramic point of view and the fact that he has spent his working life hopping back and forth between the public and private sectors gives him a unique perspective on market information and the needs of the real producers and traders on the ground. For Omer, the main problems with traditional MIS are that 1) government programs never actually mirror the complexity of what is going on in the markets, and have never before collected or redistributed market information that would be interesting to producers and traders and 2) government programs are based on fictitious assumptions; assumptions about how many traders are working in livestock, assumptions about what they need, assumptions that simply bringing scales into the markets will make traders use them instead of their traditional pricing based on colors, sizes and origin, etc. Dirani admits that fixing such problems would be a massive undertaking, and may even be impossible due to all of the factors that made him fascinated by livestock markets to begin with. Perhaps there isn’t any new market information that would be useful to producers and traders of livestock because they already get their information from trusted sources that cut along tribal lines. But we can at least start by actually reflecting the varieties and origins of livestock for better price collection, and by simply asking what types of market information people on the ground may actually find useful so that we can then move forward based on real knowledge--no more assumptions.

Rija Ravelomanana

2008-12-19T06:50:00.001Z

Antananarivo, Madagascar

Rija Ravelomanana’s two dreams are to give poor people access to information, and to create a system where buyers and sellers have a better relationship. He’ll tell you eloquently—and make you believe through his assurance and stories in the field--that these are critical factors for success, and the most important things you can strive for when implementing any MIS. In his years working in agriculture in Madagascar, he’s seen so many incidents of buyers and sellers not being able to find each other—the proper links just don’t exist. Groundnut sellers complain to him of no market, and buyers complain that they can’t find the groundnuts. So what needs to happen is to have an accessible place where all of this information can be stored. And when producers have access to price information, they can take back some of the power that the traders always hold. And one last dream from Riva—and we’ll let him have three--is every player being able to control the commodity chain and look at historic data, which will then help everybody along that chain--to know the fluctuation of prices, the best time to sell the product, the best time to start producing, and where the best places are to grow. This way buyers can know where the cheapest product are will go there, which will then increase the demand and increase the prices. These are the rules of the market. Rija believes that we evolve the more we learn about MIS, and that no one can expect a miracle. But we’ve come a long way already, and he thinks we're all making progress together.

Koumatio Camara Jerome

2008-10-30T15:26:00.004Z

Soubre, Côte d’Ivoire

Camara, from ANOPACI (l’Association Nationale des Organisations Professionnelles Agricoles) in Côte d’Ivoire, is quite a joy to work with--at once serious and dedicated to his job and yet consistently lighting up a room--or a corner of the market--with his huge laugh. He’s been an enumerator for ANOPACI, running the Point of Villagious (PIV) in Soubre, Cote d’Ivoire, since 2002. That means that he’s responsible for collecting price information from 5 markets—one main market in Soubre itself and its 4 satellite markets. He collects these prices once a week and then enters them into Esoko, which now has an impressive and constant list of price data thanks to ANOPACI’s deployment. The biggest challenge to his work, he says, is that there just isn’t enough time to develop a more evolved MIS. Projects end too fast, money comes and goes--and good ideas don’t get a chance to grow in an environment like that. Not to mention the fact that he and all of his colleagues are spread around the country, and it isn’t always easy logistically or financially to get together. Price information is important, he knows, but he’s excited that with a new program ANOPACI will be collecting offers to buy and sell and contacts from markets because too many times he sees buyers and sellers just simply not finding each other. In Africa, he says, everyone grows up around agriculture, so it’s not about whether you’re “interested” in it or not—everyone is invested in some way or another. ANOPACI’s lucky to have Camara and his colleagues, a dedicated group really trying to make MIS work in their corner of the world.

Puoza Der Gamaliel, Systems Administrator

2008-10-14T11:56:00.002Z

Accra, Ghana

Puoza der Gamaliel believes that no one should have to travel to get information anymore. This is why he's put so much time and energy into creating the SMS gateway that makes Esoko the powerful communication tool that it is. Simply put, a mobile operator connects to Esoko's database and passes us the subscriber text messages; we then formulate responses and send them back, in realtime, to the corresponding subscribers. Remarkably, Puoza grew up in a small village in Northern Ghana and didn't even lay eyes on a computer until his mid-twenties. He was immediately entranced by what he saw, and after learning about the mouse and monitor he taught himself how to write code in all the languages he could get his hands on. He is still so taken with "this device that gives you the ability to create anything you want" and after 4 years with BusyLab, he's still excited about the possibilities Esoko holds. Because in Puoza's mind, the possibilities of what technology can do are endless. So why not create products that can bring information to his friends and family in Nandom, Ghana, giving them the ability to make better business decisions just by picking up their mobile phones? No travelling, no trouble, but realtime information at their disposal, all thanks to Puoza's SMS gateway.

Kujo Azumah, Farmer

2008-10-10T18:00:00.002Z

Chamba, Northern Region, Ghana

Kujo Azumah grew up farming and has never really considered exploring any other profession. As the oldest son in the family, he holds most of the responsibility on the farm, and takes that responsibility very seriously. He says what sets him apart from his parents is the fact that his generation is a lot more comfortable with technology than theirs--especially with mobile phones. That's why when he learned about Esoko's SMS price alerts through the SEND Foundation's project in Northern Ghana he was one of the first to sign up and start using the information in hopes of increasing his family's revenue in a community that has historically received low buying offers from outside traders simply due to their lack of relevant market information. When he got an SMS alert for groundnuts a few months ago, he was able to convert the kilos into local measures (bags in this case) and realized that the prices in the center of the country, and in Accra, where drastically higher than what the Northern traders where offering him in his small community of Chamba. He could have sold to the traders that visited his farm for 320 GHC (1 GHC is roughly equivalent to 1 USD), or he could ship the very same groundnuts to Accra, with the inexpensive transport cost of 4 GHC, and sell them for 672 GHC. Trusting the information he received on the alert, he shipped them down to Makola market in Accra, making an extra 348 GHC. Kujo is so proud to not only continue his family's work, but to put a new spin on it--he is now slowly taking power away from the Northern traders who have, for all of his life, taken advantage of his community.

Mohammed Mumuni, Project Director

2008-09-26T12:22:00.002Z

Tamale, Ghana

Mohammed Mumuni spends most of this time on the road. And in Northern Ghana that road is long, usually unpaved, and always full of surprises. Mohammed is the Project Director of the small but innovative ECAMIC project--funded by SEND West Africa, the project works with small-scale producers in Northern Ghana through improving access to market information and data—i.e., market information via mobile. A self-proclaimed ICT4D geek, Mohammed's fascination with the power of technology to help his community has kept him content while bouncing up and down in the back of a car for half of his waking life as he travels to visit and hold trainings for three very isolated producer cooperatives. Setting up SMS alerts to deliver price information to these farmers means that for the first time the seller has more power in a relationship that is historically dominated by the buyer, and he's seen evidence of the power dynamics within these small communities starting to change. Mohammed is honest about the challenges of infrastructure and illiteracy, but instead of viewing them as immovable obstacles he strives to be inventive in his trainings and strategies instead. It's characters like Mumuni--dedicated, inspired, and able to bridge the gap between new technologies and their own communities--who will shape the success of such projects, and of ICT in the developing world at large.

Morgari Nurideen, Farmer

2008-09-19T10:57:00.001Z

Wa, Ghana

Morgari Nurideen does not fit the stereotype of a traditional farmer. A former teacher, he changed careers in his 40's after working in an elementary school for all of his professional life. With his family's large plot of land in Northwestern Ghana, he went into maize, soya and rice seed farming, thinking that it would be a good way to make more money than the government paid him as a teacher. What he didn’t realize going into his new profession was just how inconsistent and daunting the seed market in Northern Ghana could be. Out of necessity, Morgari joined the Seed Growers Association of Wa--without the help of such an association, he says, he would never have been able to locate new markets to sell the seeds he had already harvested. Years and many harvests later, he's an executive of the association. Discussing the difficulties of finding stable seed markets, Morgari makes the point that it’s not just finding the information about those markets that’s important for the association but rather their ability to distribute that information to members in a timely, organized and inexpensive way. Mobile phones have helped this, eliminating the need to travel out to farms, but making calls to all the members is still expensive, the lines still unpredictable. After all of these years in the business, Morgari is still hoping that he lives to see a day when a simple seed producer can make decent money without having to face such inconsistency in the market.

Nana Timothy Aye Kusi, Buyer

2008-09-03T19:11:00.003Z

Accra, Ghana
Despite being born in 1936 Nana Kusi is a thoroughly modern man. Fascinated by how ICTs can help the Cocoa Industry in Ghana, he called us in to the Produce Buying Company which he chairs. Being the largest buying company in the second largest producer in the World, there's a good chance he's sourced some of the chocolate you've eaten. Recounting the history of cocoa in Ghana, and the ups and downs in the industry, he explained how Swiss Missionaries originally introduced it for their own pleasure, and how Tetteh Quarshie commercialized it after seeing plantations of the plant in Central African Republic. Ghana has always tried to protect their farmers by setting prices and ensuring 70% of the FOB goes to the producer. They provide research, stability, transport, and inputs so that the farmers can have a steady market. But times are changing. Most market boards have fallen out of favour, and in Ghana, his company is now facing stiff competition as their buying monopoly was liberalized. They're down to 30% share of the beans. 'We need to keep the loyalty of our farmers' he stated. Squeezed on all sides, he's interested in how mobile phones can connect his office with their district officers and their local buying agents, and help introduce efficiences in how they manage their information needs/flow.

Yussuf Yucubu, TradeAgent, Ghana

2008-07-08T13:45:00.002Z

Greater Accra, Ghana
In the Upper Eastern Ghanaian town of Bawku, along the border with Burkina Faso, it is not uncommon to see young boys taking their family’s cattle into the bush. Armed with just a stick, a few young boys manage to keep dozens of cattle together and moving in the same direction, despite their proportional disadvantage. Yussif Yucubu was one of those boys, and for as long as he can remember, he’s been taking cattle into the bush on the weekends, after school, and during school vacations. As a young man, Yussif made the decision to leave his hometown and move to Accra to attend computer school, and a few years later, when TradeNet Ghana was interviewing for the position of a TradeAgent in Ashaiman Cattle Market, he was the first to sign up. This TradeAgent would need to know about livestock, understand the ins and outs of the market, and be able to use a computer and a mobile phone with ease. A 28 year-old energetic and bright Yussif was an easy choice. He now works as a TradeAgent, registering traders in the market, uploading offers to buy and sell cattle, sheep and goats, and connecting sellers in his market with traders he finds online. He also takes trips outside of the city to smaller villages so he can register those rural traders and transporters on TradeNet as well. Yussif speaks 6 languages, all of which he uses for his work. He says that when he left his small town for Accra his family thought he might abandon the family trade, and although they were concerned about the legacy, they pushed him to move forward and learn new things anyway. But now, as a TradeAgent in Ashaiman Cattle Market, it looks as if he’s found a way to seamlessly combine his new life with his old one.

Garcia Honvoh, QA Specialist, Ghana

2008-06-27T14:23:00.002Z

Greater Accra, Ghana
There are very few people in the world who can say 'we're updating the site today, and then we get to test!' with genuine, palpable enthusiasm. BusyLab is lucky enough to have discovered one of them. Garcia Honvoh, known in the office as Mama G, has been at BusyLab for two years working as a Quality Assurance Specialist. She says she is 'too curious', a characteristic she sees as a necessity to thrive in the world of QA. That curiosity, along with her determination to get to the bottom of any problem she’s investigating, has been part of her personality since she was a young girl growing up in Benin. Now, though, she gets to use it in a way she feels can positively impact people, and to her it’s the perfect job. Garcia loves finding defects in TradeNet before the public sees them, because at the end of the day, she says, QA exists to help developers create the best product they can, ensuring that users have a positive, hassle-free experience. It’s impossible to convey Garcia’s fabulous energy through the written word, but it can be said that she is not only consistent in keeping BusyLab’s software bug free, but also in cheering up the office on a daily basis. Garcia and her husband, a radio frequency engineer who also hails from Benin, are expecting their first child in October. They plan to teach the new baby all about technology, doing their part to usher in a new, tech savvy generation in West Africa.

Malik Abubaker-Abdul, Trader

2008-06-13T14:30:00.001Z

Greater Accra
Ever wondered the difference between a cowpea from Northeastern Ghana and one from Southern Niger? Or Northern Togo? If so, Malik Abubakar-Abdul is your man. He'll happily show you the many varieties of cowpeas and maize in his shop, even attempting to make clear the minutia that differentiates one variety from the other. A 39-year-old trader in Accra, Malik has been trading for over 20 years, learning about and taking over the business from his father and uncle. He’s been a user of TradeNet for a year now, and has been contacted several times from buyers both inside and outside West Africa. He sees great hope in the opportunities TradeNet can bring, and says he is blessed to be a part of it. But his frustration with work and with the capability of these new technologies to really help his business is the same frustration that so many in the world of agriculture share: middlemen. And because so many middlemen have procured bank accounts in the last few years, it makes it that much easier to do business with them instead of with the farmers themselves. A large trader like Malik can now establish a relationship with a middleman, call when he needs goods, place the money straight into a bank account, and that same day have the goods on the way to Accra. A deal is done, and Malik has not even left his market. What would help, he says, is if the farmers were more organized, and as a group could get a bank account for themselves. He knows he could get a better price directly from them, and that they could have higher profits without the middlemen, but Malik says it’s a difficult cycle for one man alone to break. He works with seven sellers, all of whom have mobile phones, and he spends about 10 USD a week on phone credit, which he feels is quite low. He has two children who are going to school in Accra as well as learning Arabic from Malik himself, who is fluent.

Xose Ahlijah, Software Developer

2008-06-06T14:33:00.003Z

Greater Accra, Ghana
When he was 10 years old, Xose Ahlijah watched his father bring a PC into their Accra household for the first time. While Xose’s father planned to use the simple machine to write documents for work, his young son had other ideas. And it seemed that the more rules and regulations his Dad created to keep Xose away from it, the more trouble Xose was willing to get into just to get his hands on it. His Dad eventually acquiesced, and began teaching him all that he knew. Fourteen years later, at the age of 24, Xose is a web developer working on TradeNet. Between attending IT school and teaching himself, Xose is now fluent in Basic, Java, C++, PHP and ColdFusion. Because TradeNet is so innovative, and the team in Accra so close, Xose feels truly lucky to be where he is. He dreams of a day when he can walk out his door on the way to work and hear people talking about TradeNet--referring to the market prices, forex rates, weather alerts, or offers to buy and sell they received via SMS. He wants to feel, in the streets of Accra, the same way that Google employees must feel in the streets of the Bay area, overhearing the public talk about their product as a part of their everyday lives. Asked about frustrations, Xose gets a perplexed look and follows it right up with a big grin—for a good developer, he explains, coding frustrations are equivalent to stimulating challenges, and nothing could be better than a great challenge. And as an aside, Xose’s not just a star developer--he just planted 5 acres of cassava outside of Accra, and is waiting for the chance to upload an Offer to Sell onto the system he helped create.

Issa Keita, Trader

2008-05-30T14:48:00.001Z

Bamako, Mali
In the hustle and bustle of Bamako’s frenzied markets, there is one man, donned with a suit and a smile, who has tapped into something he finds extraordinary. Since 2006, Issa Keita has been posting offers to sell on TradeNet, and transforming the very nature of the export business that he’s been in for 15 years. With contacts he made as a result of his posts, Issa has exported maize to Niger, cashews and peanuts to Senegal, shea nuts to Denmark, cowpeas to Burkina Faso and Togo…and that’s just the beginning of the list. These deals are quite large as well; rarely less than 100 tons and many times twice that much. Clearly that makes for a great deal money, which Issa estimates at over one million US dollars to date. Before he used TradeNet, Issa received a lot of local inquiries about his commodities but few people were able to come up with the capital to follow through with a deal. Now, able buyers all over West Africa and Europe are seeing his offers, either via SMS or the web, and as a result his business is booming. What’s best about TradeNet, Issa says, is that so much useful commercial information is within reach to anyone who wants to utilize it. His only frustration is that many people in the industry don’t jump on the opportunity to change the way they do business, because Issa sees taking advantage of such opportunities as essential to being a good businessman. He estimates that he spends around $600 a month on his phone for work, and also uses the internet every day. As more people come online, Issa expects to spend more time doing business online and less on his phone, hopefully saving money for his company. Issa was born and raised in Bamako, and cannot imagine living and working anywhere else. He has four children.

Nguyen Van Thiet, Trader

2008-05-23T14:58:00.001Z

Cho Lac District, Ben Tre Province, Southern Vietnam

‘INFORMATION IS NOT ENOUGH, WE NEED AN ORGANIZATION’

Mr Thiet works as a small trader with local farmers buying ornamental trees and selling them to larger traders. He rarely knows any market information, rather, he sells based on his experience and has no idea what the trees are then resold for. He thinks that information is important, but “not enough”. He wants an organization that can work locally to help him and the farmers to know what is happening in the market, to forecast which trees will be in demand, to help them decide what to grow, and to help them organize and aggregate their products to sell to larger traders, (by calling them to come and collect). He thinks that price information on the internet is risky, in that the advertised price may not be accurate or may change.. and if they plant according to the price advertised, then they may be in for a big disappointment when they can’t get those prices. Price stability and a guaranteed market are key to their prosperity. He believes that 10-12% of the farmers in the Commune have mobile phones.

Bahati Tweve, Broker

2008-05-21T14:51:00.000Z

Mufindi, Iringa Region, Tanzania
Ask Bahati Tweve a question about agri-business in the Mufindi district of Tanzania and you are bound to get an earful--because he’s bound to have had firsthand experience. Bahati has been/is a farmer, trader, broker, trainer and shushushu (market spy). His newest business venture is focused on his work as a broker--he has begun linking farmers and businessmen, charging a fee with each deal made. What sets Bahati apart from other brokers, though, is that he makes the details of the transaction transparent for all parties involved. In local supply chains dominated by mendacious middlemen, Bahati is rare, but after all of his years working in local agriculture he is convinced that market transparency is the key to improved livelihoods in his community. Bahati says that he has to first identify buyers and sellers face to face, which can be quite time consuming in the rural areas, as he sometimes has to ride his bike or walk where there is no public transportation available. After he trusts his new partners he does use his mobile to contact many of them, although he estimates that only about 60% have phones. Bahati spends about $50 a month on phone cards, but believes he will spend more in the future as coverage improves in rural communities. He himself has four different numbers, and uses whatever network has the best coverage in the area he’s in at the moment of making a call. Bahati is raising six children, and says that even though he works constantly, he still struggles to make enough money to really get ahead.

Zakari Ali Jony, Information Manager

2008-05-13T14:52:00.000Z

Accra, Ghana
Zakari Ali Jony isn't a farmer or a trader, but he does have the pulse of Ghana's markets at his fingertips. As the manager of TradeNet Ghana’s enumeration program, Jony ensures that market information from markets all around the country is sent into the system via sms or the web. He’s nearly spellbound when he talks about how different his world is as compared to the world his parents inhabited--information, he says, brings people power through choice, and technology has the potential to bring that information to the very people who need it most. He says it's essential to have market information properly collected and easily available so that farmers and traders can make more informed choices. While it can be frustrating for him to see people in the market unwilling to explore new opportunities, he remains hopeful. Jony grew up in Accra, and is now raising his young daughter there. He travels often inside Ghana, expanding the enumeration network and training new users. In an average week, Jony oversees over 500 prices, 30 new contacts and 40 offers to buy and sell come into TradeNet through his enumerators. As the network expands, the numbers continue to rise.

Hajia Talhatu Kudi, Trader

2008-05-05T14:54:00.002Z

Greater Accra, Ghana
It’s easy to see why Hajia Talhatu was given a new last name by friends and co-workers in Accra—Kudi, the Hausa word meaning money. Hajia Talhatu Kudi started working in Nima market with her mother when she was just 11 years old; she later took over the business and has since grown it considerably, putting her boundless energy to work—Hajia is proud to say that she now buys and sells in metric tonnes what her mother began buying and selling in kilos so many years ago. Hajia deals mainly in cowpea, wheat, sesame and millet, travelling bi-weekly to Northern Ghana to purchase in bulk from producers, then hiring transporters to bring the goods down to Accra. She usually works with the same set of producers and traders, but says that she still needs to take these frequent journeys north to ensure that the goods meet her quality standards. Hajia says that finding new contacts and markets is something she's always interested in doing, but that she needs capital to be able to grow her business outside of her regular contacts with whom she has mutual trust and works with on a credit basis. Hajia has five children, and is putting them through school with the money she earns as a trader in Nima. She shared her thoughts on TradeNet, as well as her infectious spirit, with CNN’s Inside Africa a few months ago.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Thu Hong, Fruit Exporter

2008-04-24T14:56:00.000Z

Cho Lac District, Ben Tre Province, Southern Vietnam.
Ms. Hong is a dynamic woman that has a growing business exporting local fruits to China and Europe. She specializes in Rambuttan and Longan, and has devised ways to trick the fruit into staying fresh while being frozen for long transport periods to China. At first the Chinese sourced here, now they rely on her. She estimates that she spends about $500/month on phone costs calling her farmers and other traders to source the product for the Chinese. Her voice gets hoarse at times, she says. She can’t broadcast those offers to her 40 suppliers by SMS because she needs to bargain with them over quality and price. Her “motto” is to help the farmers by getting them to produce select quality produce so they can sell at a higher price. She uses the internet to get information about price and demand from her local fruit association, of which she is a member. She wants a web page to market her goods, but must wait till her daughter finishes college this year so that they can really start up the business and increase her exports.

Nguyen Huu Tam, Coconut Trader

2008-04-22T15:00:00.000Z

Ben Tre Province, South Vietnam
Based in one of South Vietnam’s poorest provinces, and isolated from the nearby Ho Chi Minh by the Mekong Delta rivers, Mr. Tam sources coconuts from three neighbouring provinces, paying on average about 5,000 Vietnamese Dong for each one ($0.30) and selling them for 5,100. His maximum capacity is about 50,000 coconuts a day. He earns on average $7/day, or about $2,250/year. Mr. Tam did a deal 2-3years back to supply the Chinese market, but their demand is too high, and he can not aggregate enough coconuts to meet that demand. Rather, he sells to other Vietnamese traders in Ho Chi Minh, or the highland provinces. They place an order, he waits for the money, and then fills their trucks with the coconuts. Every day he calls his ‘friends’ in the private trading companies to find out what the market prices are. He trusts them, and it gives him an idea of demand and how to set his prices. He thinks that public SMS-based prices from the government or other traders would not be accurate. The small traders ‘will always tell you something false’. In any case, he says, he doesn’t need the retail prices from the internet or the TV, rather, he needs the private trading prices to set his own margins. He estimates that he spends about $18/month on phone charges to access this market information and close his deals. He estimates small traders spend about $9/month on phone fees. 70% of his supply he has to call farmers, where the rest is just brought in. All farmers in Vietnam have fixed phones, and about 50% have mobiles, he claims. “If i call their mobiles, they can see it’s me calling and can avoid the call... so I prefer to call them on their fixed phone when they’re at home, and then they always answer!”.