A market information system for South West Cameroon

The question

A first market information service had been launched in 1999 in South West Province. It collapsed after eighteen months. The task was to understand why, then design its successor: which markets to cover, which commodities, with what means and what governance.

How we worked

A participatory workshop of forty-six participants in Buea assessed the former service against six criteria and mapped the information needs of eleven stakeholder categories. Then three weeks in the field, from 22 January to 9 February 2007, across forty-six localities in the six divisions, using four separate questionnaires — farmers, traders, markets, media. Statistical processing in SPSS, mapping in MapInfo.

The inventory catalogued ninety markets and sixteen media outlets, five newspapers and eleven radio stations.

What we found

An income of 163 dollars a month

Average net annual income among surveyed farmers stands at 977,758 CFA francs, about 163 dollars a month. Palm oil is by far the most remunerative product, at 1.23 million francs of net income, but also the one with the heaviest transport cost.

Roads that cut markets off

Only 7.9 % of the tracks linking fields to markets are tarred. In the rainy season 86 % are in poor condition and twenty-four kilometres out of every hundred remain passable. Five markets are reachable only by sea.

Markets with no power, no scales, no guard

Of the ninety markets catalogued, none has a weighbridge. Eighty-nine per cent have no electricity, 97 % no generator, 99 % no fixed telephone, and 92 % are unguarded — which explains the thefts traders complain of.

Markets throughout the South-West Province do not have weighbridges. Most of the markets have neither electricity (89 %) nor generators (97 %) nor they are guarded (92 %).

A population poorly equipped to receive information

Twenty-four per cent of farmers have no radio, 57.5 % no mobile phone, 98.3 % no landline, 95.4 % no internet access. Among traders — 84 % of whom are women — 71 % have a mobile, but none has a landline.

Why the first service failed

Half the farmers had heard of it, but 73.5 % never used it. The main reason: an unsuitable broadcast time, cited by 47.66 %. Then information they could not understand, for 20 %. And a failure of relay: 77.9 % say the extension officer never told them about the broadcast, 93.9 % never received a leaflet. Add a prohibitive broadcast cost — six million francs a year for a private station — and too wide a scope: forty-eight commodities tracked.

But real willingness

97.7 % of farmers say they would pay a fee if the information were useful to them, and 99.3 % would take part in running the service. Among traders, 82 % in both cases.

What we proposed

The service is housed at the Provincial Delegation of Agriculture rather than the development authority — to avoid conflicts of authority with the national system, and because the staff are already there. An eleven-seat steering committee brings in farmers, traders, media, local government and research.

The scope is deliberately narrow: twenty commodities and thirteen markets, including Douala, Dschang and a Nigerian market at Ekang. Prices are collected at three levels — farmgate, wholesale, retail — with a maximum of six readings per commodity and nothing published below three sellers.

It is better for the MIS to cover five commodities well, than to try to cover 50 commodities and do so badly for all.

Transmission runs on SMS, at under 50 francs against more than 150 francs a call minute. Processing uses the FAO-AgriMarket software, adopted at every level to guarantee harmonisation with the national system. Dissemination is deliberately multi-channel — radio in the evening, five minutes, price ranges rather than averages, market notice boards, leaflets, extension officers, churches and chieftaincies — because 20 % of farmers do not listen to the radio and 58 % read no newspaper.

The budget comes to 29 million CFA francs of initial investment and 66.9 million a year to run. Lacking immediate funds, we recommended starting on four markets rather than waiting.

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