Linking buyers to sellers

 

Kenyan farmer Henry Wakoli, who grows maize, millet and sorghum in the Webuye District, used to transport all his produce to the local market at Kimilili, 40 km away. The 2 hour journey cost him valuable time and money and tied him to selling everything at one venue. At the end of the day, he had no guarantee of being able to shift all his harvest, so would usually lower prices dramatically just to get rid of it. "After a bad day, I used to reduce commodities to half price to avoid the transport cost involved in taking it home again," he said. "We would try to sell our produce, but there was never any guarantee," added John Bifwoli, another farmer from the same area.

 

For some time now, Wakoli, Bifwoli and other farmers have been selling their harvests through a different system introduced by the Kenya Agricultural Commodities Exchange (KACE). The service combines traditional face-to-face interactions with modern communication technologies. Using blackboards, SMS, phone-in radio programmes and the Internet at market information points, farmers can find out the prices of commodities in different markets, and make contact with potential buyers. As well as advertising their own offers, they can also make bids for farm inputs such as fertilisers and seeds.

 

With a mobile phone, a producer can book SMS alerts on daily prices of a given commodity. Even better, he can find out who is looking for products like his, and clinch the deal before he leaves his farm. Once the sale is agreed, KACE will even organise transport. "It's quite easy," explained KACE IT manager Wycliffe Ochieng. "Say for example, you want to receive maize prices every morning: you subscribe to maize prices, and at 9 o'clock, we send this information to the Safaricom (telecoms) server, and it is then pushed out via SMS to the subscribers." "The KACE system has helped us get proper information for markets," said Wakoli. "We place our commodities through the trading floor and we get information instantly on potential buyers."

 

A network of 12 market information centres in rural areas serves as a focal point for learning more about marketing techniques. "Through the information kiosk in our district we have learnt a lot about marketing, including cleaning, grading, storage, transport and processing," said Susan Wanambisi, from Kakamega, who grows maize and beans. A monthly average of 550 farmers visits each centre. Other market resource centres have been set up on a franchise basis, offering add-on services such as transport, storage and weighing for a fee.

The KACE project, which is supported by CTA, mainly collects and disseminates market information to farmers and intermediaries in Kenya's Western, Nyanza, Rift valley and Eastern provinces. But as the service grows, prices are being made available for markets further afield. "The information kiosk means we can know the prices and get orders from as far away as Uganda and Tanzania," said one producer, Kennedy Wanyonyi, who grows maize, millet, sorghum and beans and is now selling to buyers in both these countries, with transport arranged by KACE.

 

Another farmer, George Mukalo, who produces maize, millet and beans, says the service is helping to stem the flow of rural people wanting to abandon farming. "The system has greatly encouraged farmers as they have a virtual guarantee of making profits and selling their produce very fast," he said.

Abjata Khalif

www.kacekenya.com