What other challenges (not already discussed) are faced in providing information to smallholders/producers that will strengthen agricultural markets? How can these challenges be addressed?
Antoine KantizaPromotion de l'Education à Distance/Promotion of Education and Learning in Distance, PLEAD in short Burundi
In order to acknowledge the market information retained by the Burundi farmers who daily use cell phone, I visited a vendor of imported seeds located in front of Regina Mundi Cathedral at Bujumbura in the morning of Friday on December 16th, 2011 where a farmer from Isale district, expressed its concerns related to the awareness of the coming of fertilizer in their district: “ Many projects send fertilizers in our rural area and we do not know it before the price was augmented by traders who bought it in the early hours “ and he added that “the scarcity of fertilizer is like sugar".
“My close trader of Bujumbura calls me and advice me that I can collect my harvest or let it because Bujumbura market has or has not a need of new food supply” said Kirazungu a farmer of fruits and vegetables from Gisagara in Isale district. However other farmers who do not have the same call, brought theirs products to measure their business luck and may find that the prices have dropped. It means that farmers without close relationships with traders could not get the added value from their cell phones. Moreover, another farmer of Isale area said that its cell phone allows him to do not travel toward the famous Bujumbura market even for acquiring the payment “ if the main road of my countryside was straight and modern, I should call my close trader to wait near the Bujumbura market, a truck full of my harvest and he should send the payment by the driver”
I asked Kirazunga of Gisagara if he often calls the vendor of seeds and he seemed to be very worried : “ I lost forty two thousands of Burundi francs and the vendor do not pay me back the money because the seeds did not grow” and the vendor reacts on the same moment that Kirazunga did not inform him, for instance he should have sent his agronomic support appointed by the private providers of seeds in East African Community, to follow-up in Burundi the fields where the seeds have been planted and if it was confirmed that the seeds were not good, the vendor had to reimburse the cost of purchase lost by the farmer-customer.
The vendor of imported seeds asserted that he has a good relationship with its customers among them are many farmers and showed me a list of phone numbers which belongs to customers whom he have to call regularly in order to inform them about the availability of some kind of seeds and also affirmed that he has to command the seeds abroad through e-mail and if he has to travel toward Kenya supplier, it is only to ensure that the seeds are well packed and he did not travel anymore in Netherlands, he wait the seeds by express mail.
In abstract, it is obvious that the challenger farmers of Burundi beneficiate the awareness of essential market information from their mobile phone in gathering on time some important market information which help them to take a decision-making like buying some inputs or selling their harvest however many farmers are disappointed that they could not easily write or read SMS because their cell phones are not configured in their native language Kirundi but in foreign languages like French or English.
Besides, it is not true that the cell phones are used mostly by farmers in order to increase their economic welfare, because Burundi wisdom said that “It is worth joking more than cultivating = Ikiyago gisumba ikivi said in Kirundi language” and also only competitor farmers like the farmers of Cibitoke or Isale areas, who have almost finished the fundamental school, know how to exploit the speediness of market information through ICT tools such as cell phones.
