Emerging Voices in ICT and agriculture - CTA Publishing

Strength in numbers
As Burkina Faso cotton producers’ association
UNPCB has already shown, there is scope for
negotiating a fixed fee with mobile phone operators
for unlimited calls between subscribers and
an SMS service to give updated market prices
and connect buyers and sellers. This virtual market
would allow online transactions to take place,
making valuable savings in time and transport
costs for producers. An effective ICT-based
market platform, such as Prix par SMS run by
RESIMAO-WAMIS-NET, can help producers plan
their farm strategy well in advance, choosing
which crops to grow when, depending on forecasts
of likely demand. The platform could subsequently
be developed to supply other services
such as information on crop technologies and
good practices or ICT training.
More traditional technologies also have their
role to play. Radio and television broadcasts can
be valuable channels for relaying information in
local languages and letting producers know who
is looking for which product. Farmers’ organizations
can use Internet radio to download podcasts
on marketing or modules for training and
compilations can be made, stored and distributed
on CD-ROM. Any such initiative will be doomed
to failure unless local people are involved in
developing and managing it and the service is
designed to be self-financing. But all the evidence
points to the fact that Benin’s large rural
population has a great deal to gain from more
investment in ICTs.
Based on the original essay:
“Amélioration de l’accès au marche des produits
agricoles par les TIC au Bénin.” by Aristide Z. Adaha.
Key references
Eric Pasquati (2009). Usages des TIC pour le
développement rural en Inde et au Burkina Faso
Online, accessed 12 July 2010: www.gdri-netsuds.
org/IMG/pdf/Pasquati.pdf
Oukou, A. (2009) “Les TIC et l’attractivité
dynamique des territoires dans la problématique
du développement local en Afrique” in
TIC & Développement.
Online, accessed 16 December 2011: http://www.
tic.ird.fr/spipbbf1.html?article321
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