[quote="zainul"] I felt that talking through mobile phone in the preferred languages by the various actors of value chain is the best ICT device/means for operation of value chain activities. [...] I think SMS is not that popular or usable because of language,typing or operational procedure. [/quote] Dear Zainul and other ICT experts, Do you think preference of calling over SMS is only due to technical reasons? What about pricing of the different services? I've noticed the price of SMS services can vary widely between countries. Does pricing policy by mobile phone operators lead users to choose call rather than SMS? Jo

[quote="sapnaaroranarula"] in case of developing countries, farmers will not be able to use these technologies unless these are funded by Government and other institutions.Like in india, ICt activities /infrastructure is funded by bothe private and public enterprises. government has started many portals to give updated info to the farmers as well as other intermediaries.One such portal is AGMARKNET [...] Farmers can have free access to this data. Sapna [/quote] Dear Sapna, On the funding and economic analysis of new technologies for value chains, what you describe above is an ICT that is provided as a public good by the government and used by private stakeholders, without cost for farmers. This looks very much like market information systems that are set up in some countries. For example, governments in France and Taiwan (Province of China) provide daily market information from the main terminal wholesale market on the internet. The more precise information is available for registered members only. While some farmers get a free login, the bigger business players interested in accessing price information must pay for their login. However, in both countries, these membership fees do not cover at all the costs of running the system. Thus, could you please tell us more about the financial setup of the Indian e-chaupal case that you mentioned in the discussion under Question 2. Although this system is commodity specific and directly related to the products of interest to the corporate buyer, where does funding come from to provide the hardware, software and capacity building of farmers to use the ICT? Could this funding arrangement be replicated by other agricultural value chains wishing to enhance their performance with ICTs? Jo

I have a more precise question on potential downsides of using ICT in value chains: Do we have estimates of how much it costs for a small business or farmer to start using new ICTs in its value chain, and the corresponding extra income that can be netted from this use? Such cost/benefit analyses would be of great use for development partners to promote the good practices to farmers and business stakeholders who, ultimately, wish to know whether they are going to get some profit out of it. Jo

[quote="flaureys"] Middlemen tend to be slightly demonized as in theories on value chains, and are often portrayed as reckless profiteurs from poor farmers. In many african countries though, the play a role in traditional prefinancing schemes, inputs procurement, market information provision and relationship building between the small farmers and bigger traders. [/quote] Hear! Hear! The same evidence on the usefulness of the middlemen can be found in Asia. What is more, market intermediaries (we shouldn't forget "middlemen" are very often "middlewomen" in many countries of Africa and Eastern Asia) are often the only outlet available for communities in [u]remote areas[/u]. Detaining information through ICT about a more favourable price in the city market will not really improve farmers' bargaining positions with the trader if that trader is the only one ready to bear the costs of doing business with the remote community. Rather than a tool for bypassing the market intermediary, I would propose ICT (and other supply chain management tools, for that matter) be used to strengthen the sustainability of business relationships between existing value chain stakeholders, which should lead to greater chain performance, according to most of the empirical data from supply chain management studies - including those in developing countries. Jo

Hi Lisa, I've read the responses to your first question. The discussion is already very enlightening for me. Most of the inputs for now deal with information dissemination. I wonder whether I'm still in the topic of this e-forum if I ask the ICT experts to share their thoughts about information management technologies and how these can work in developing country contexts. I'm thinking in particular about data bases used by market intermediaries and facilitators to manage their supply chains. In the more elaborate business partnerships of a strategic alliance between supplier and customer, such data bases are shared in order to optimize the logistics of value chains. Many food retailers in industrialized countries share this technology with their most trusted suppliers. Has this already been extended to developing countries? With the globalization of agrifood value chains, how can we help smallholder farmers and SMEs get prepared to face increased demands for data management about their practices? Jo

Hi Lisa, Thanks for your welcome message. Hello to all. I'm Jo Cadilhon. I've been working for the past four years at FAO's Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific as Marketing Officer (Quality Improvement). So I can contribute expertise on how agricultural value chains work to this discussion, if needed. However, I've only recently started exploring ICT tools to support my technical work so I look forward to be more on the learning side in this forum. I facilitate a D-group on linking smallholder farmers to dynamic markets: [url=]http://dgroups.org/Community.aspx?c=7233a2e1-1b39-407f-8479-296fa57edf2…] Best wishes, Jo