Imagine a situation where farmers, market traders, and extension service providers have no information on agricultural market trends. Imagine the uncertainty a grain trader would experience having no idea of the selling price of maize in that particular harvest season. This has been the life of many value chain actors, including long-time Tanzanian farmer and trader, Mr. Kolineli Bukiki, who resides in Sumbawanga, Rukwa Region, in Tanzania.
The Ministry of Agriculture was challenged by the lack of timely market information despite its efforts to improve producer incomes, farm productivity and address trade policy challenges.
In 2017 through USG support, ASPIRES Tanzania stepped in and supported the Ministry of Agriculture in establishing the Market Information (Intelligence) Unit (MIU) mandated to conduct domestic, regional, and international agricultural market intelligence, critically synthesize market information, and produce weekly and monthly market bulletins with concise summaries of price trends and price alerts. In 2019, USAID support
through the Sera Bora (Better Policies) Project took on the mantle and provided additional training, coaching, and mentoring to 16 MIU technical staff at the Ministry of Agriculture, specifically eight (8) men and eight (8) women. Staffs have improved their analytical and writing skills and can produce timely market information and analytics on various commodity value chains. The analyzed data includes wholesale market prices for maize, rice, beans, sorghum, wheat, millet, and round potatoes collected over the last 30 years.
This information is continuously uploaded on the Ministry’s website (kilimo.go.tz) and is accessible to extension officers, traders, farmers, and other value chain actors via an official WhatsApp platform on a weekly and monthly basis. Moreover, extension officers, situated in every region of the Country relay these market information when providing extension services to farmers.
Mr. Kolineli, a farmer and grain trader from Sumbawanga, was one of the beneficiaries of the market price information from the Market Information (Intelligence) Unit.
