Marketing information system in Yemen [Archives:2002/30/Business & Economy]

Loud shouts wake up the last traders, which arrived late yesterday night and slept in the open air for some hours. Its 5.30 am. Every morning Yousuf Fath, the data collector from the MIS Project, asks for prices, traded quantities and origin areas of horticultural products at Al-Manssora wholesale market in Aden.
The Marketing Information System Project (MIS) shall improve market transparency for farmers, traders, co-operatives and agricultural development agencies regarding price and price formation on markets for horticultural products. The MIS Project has been founded in 1995 as a unit within the General Directorate of Agricultural Marketing at the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation. Since June 2001 the MIS is a European Union-financed project under the umbrella the Yemeni-EU Food Security Programme. The EU provides the project with international experts, to train the project staff in many management skills and marketing data analysis, for example. Beside the EU equips the project with materials like computers, fax machines and transportation means.
At the beginning of his career as data collector Yousuf Fath didnt understand what market transparency means. Today he knows: Market transparency is when farmers and traders, all actors of the wholesale markets for fruits and vegetables are on an equivalent level of knowledge in marketing information. During 1995 and 1996 the MIS started and has been supported by FAO in form of technical assistance and basic equipment. During that period, the system was set up with its headquarter in Sanaa and seven field offices in major wholesale market places: Aden, Al-Hodeidah, Al-Mukalla, Ibb, Sanaa, Seyoun and Taiz. Procedures of data collection, data transmission, data processing and information dissemination have been elaborated and started. From 1997 to 2001 the MIS team worked without external support and with rather limited funds. Nevertheless, all-important functions were maintained and today the MIS disposes of a valuable time series of price and quantity data.
Two colleagues from the MIS headquarters in Sanaa and one German radio specialist arrived to visit the wholesale market. They go to all field offices of the project with the following objectives: Develop an appropriate structure of local MIS radio broadcasts and set-up, re-launch or review, with each respective field office team all necessary procedures to assure the regular and timely provision of information to the radio stations. The projects survey from February 2002 shows, that more than half of all 256 interviewed farmers do know and appreciate the ongoing market price information services via radio. These were broadcast in only two of the five survey regions. Naturally, this service is most popular among farmers within the respective regions, where more than 85% of the farmers are familiar with the broadcast. Today, after the MIS radio mission of June, four radio stations and four newspapers support the project.
Dissemination of marketing information benefits directly and indirectly all three groups of the market actors – farmers, traders and consumers.
In the short term by initiating spatial and temporal adjustments in supply and demand by means of transport and storage, thus reducing seasonal, regional and erratic price variations and the associated marketing risks as post harvest losses, for example.
In the long term by orientating the development of agricultural production towards meeting the preference structure of the consumers by product diversification and towards making maximum use of the different comparative location advantages of different rural areas.
Apart from the above-mentioned advantages the prices from the wholesale markets give them an orientation for consumer markets. Collecting data on prices and quantities not only provides information for farmers and traders but also enables state authorities to monitor developments and the estimation of harvests of most important agricultural products. This information could ensure early planning and intervention measures like adequate extension services, for example.
In the future we intend to include other markets and possibly other agricultural products into MIS and extend our services to specific national market analysis and market consulting services, explains Anke Schnoor, the German EU-team leader of the project and her colleague Ali Al-Maktari, the general director of the project adds: we go step by step in our project. We dont want to import to Yemen a finished Marketing Information System. We want to develop this system here in Yemen and adapt the idea to Yemens circumstances ? especially to farmers and traders requirements.
(Magnus Schmid, agricultural economist and radio specialist, German consultancy firm GFA Terra Systems).

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