Innitially there existed cooperative stores and organisations where farmers used to meet, discuss issues and keep their harvest, which was later marketed jointly but many broke off this system, citing incompetence in their leaders, poor record keeping and many other challenges.

Following this background, Nakaseke Multimedia Centre joined the local governments and innitiated a campaign to restore such networks and as of now, a good number of POs have opened up. These mainly include; coffee, maize and beans as these are the main crops grown here.

In this innitiative, The Nakaseke CMC worked on designing a web based sms platform using frontline sms, compiled farmers' database (residence, phone number, enterprise involved in) and we have also compiled a list of possible buyers with contact addresses (phone numbers, store locations). (We have had several trainings for these groups on how to access and effectively use the sms service).

After gathering CURRENT market information which includes prices, buyers and their contact info, we send this out via sms. First, Individual farmers are discouraged to sell and deal with middlemen buyers to avoid being cheated. So, they meet and find ways of gathering produce so that they get one better buyer.

The same information is also disseminated to other community members who may have no access to mobile phones through our community radio, and this means that we reach all kinds of communities and people, as radio is considered the cheapest and commonest means.

Also, we are working closely with local governments extension staff at sub counties and other technical people in various agricultural fields to provide possible answers to farmers' technical questions. These questions from farmers usually come back to the Nakaseke CMC also via sms, we send replies (with support of technical staff).

An agricultural show was also designed and in place to specifically answer these questions live over the community broadcaster. So, if some one missed an sms, at least he/she cant miss a radio show. The show also features group members who usually share experiences and success stories.

We been working with these groups closely for the last five years, (though sms service has been here for 1 and half years now).

Hi Michael,

I just love to share some great mobile application we are using here to interact and effectively work with various producer organisations.

We are using a web based sms platform (frontline sms). With it, we are able to gather market info, pests and disease information, new developments and any other key resources for farmers, upload it and distribute it by sms to various farmers from the various POs.

Feedback tells us that there has been a great impact as local producers are no longer cheated by middlemen buyers, they are more prepared to handle certain pests and diseases and are even upto date.

Thanks very much Bruce for this quick reaction.

Am working with Nakaseke Community Multimedia Centre, located in Nakaseke District of Uganda, Central Region, 40km from the capital, 10km off Kampala Gulu Rd. The Centre also broadcasts a community radio at 102.9 Frequency Modulation. We usually disseminate such information to rural farmers through our community radio and village visits to farmers.

So i hope we can be in touch and see how we can work together on this issue.

This is my contact info;

email: [email protected]

Cell: +256 782 699495

Bruce,

This is really great. Just recently in our village, a farmer purchased weed master  to deal with weeds in his maize garden, which was about 10 acres. Unfortunately after planting and spraying, 2 weeks passed but the weeds were not showing any sign of dying, and on returning to the Agrochemicals shop where he purchased, they refused to make any refund.

I wonder why the Ministry of Agriculture has not taken responsibility to spread such useful information to the rural farmers who are still cheated by these fake vendors.

So Bruce, how can we help disserminate this message to the rural farmers?

What are the steps used and how can the farmer identify that scratch panel?

and do you think that all the products on market now have got this scratch panel?

Thanks

Emmanuel, thanks for that input. For sure before we think about all these connectivity issues, something that should be considered first is the educational level of the farmers. A lot of useful information has been (and still being) developed and uploaded but the end user (rural local farmers) has not benefited just because of that gap.

For a number of years, we have been actively involved in translating and diluting lots of information resources that we later disseminate to the rural farmers through the different media that we operate.

On many occassions, we have been involved in training different groups of people in accessing web content and using the different ICT services but the main challenge has always been the language gap.