New resource to support deployments of Mobile Market Information Systems (MIS)

One of the most common use cases of mobile agriculture services is the delivery of market prices.  Although these have been around in some form or another for several years, many tend to fail in reaching scale, impact or commercial viability. To help Agri VAS operators in avoiding the common pitfalls, the GSMA mAgri team has recently released a resource dedicated to mobile market information systems targeted at rural smallholder farmers.

The document, titled Mobile Market Information Systems:  A Quick Start Guide, is intended for those new to MIS (but not new to Agri VAS) and walks readers through three key areas:

  1. Preparation & Market Assessment
  2. Design & Development
  3. Business Model

Background on conventional market structures and behaviour is given to provide readers with the baseline knowledge needed to consider an approach to launching their own service and understand what partnerships ma y be needed.  To demonstrate these baseline concepts, we’ve taken examples from our partners like IICD, RONGEAD and Esoko.

One interesting and useful item from the paper I’d like to highlight is how these services tend not to be financially sustainable on their own and depend on successful bundling of services.  Another item deals with what to consider when moving into the more complex areas of price forecasting or projecting.

Complete details on the above items along with more insights are found within the 10 page quick start guide which be downloaded here.

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