Michael, I believe that we Kenya Agricultural Commodity Exchange Limited (KACE) (an ap) in collaboration with the Safaricom Limited (an mno) are a good example of this in Kenya. Not only do we provide content (reliable & timely market price information as well as commodity offers to sell and bids to buy) but to do so we had fisrt to understand the farmers' needs for market access, then develop the content, as well as develop appropriate ICT based platforms (in collaboration with mno) to provide the content, and build farmrs' capacity to access and use the platforms effectively through farmer training workshops and promotions.

Thanks.

Adrian

Ben, I hear you. But aps are in a market place of ideas! And the market will sort out the concentration. It is hard for anyone to "legislate" it, in a free market environment!

bkaddom, while I agree that the 3 key functions by agricultural partners - "understanding farmers need"; "providing content"; "connecting with farming communities" may be different, they are not mutually exclusive, but complimentary in practice, and can be effectively provided by one ap.

Thanks.

Adrian

I agree with radard's delineation of the roles of mno and agricultural partner. In my view, the mno is the platform provider and the ap the content provider. In my experience the partnership is formed by an Agreement, in which the roles of each party are specified. However, it is my experience that mnos dont want to engage the aps directly. Instead, an ap has to go through a third party IT company. And the ap has to negotiate and sign the Agreement with the itc to provide a service/content on the mno platform. Our experience is also that the mnos are willing to share only a small % of the revenue generated with an ap. And even then, the little share is never paid in time to the ap. This negates the ap's financial viability. Usually, the mno is so large relative to the ap that the ap has little or no bargaining power for a fair share of the revenue, and in obligating the mno/itc to pay on time, e.g. on a monthly basis. How can this challenge due to imbalance of bargaining power between an ap on one hand and the mno/itc on the other be fairly addressed!?