Receiving market prices by SMS
Daniel Annerose
Emile Sène
Daniel Annerose and Emile Sène describe Manobi's 'Xam Marsé' and how the life of one Senegalese farmer has been transformed by a mobile phone.
'Xam Marsé’, or ‘Know your market’, is the Wolof name for the agricultural market information system (MIS) developed and operated by Manobi, in conjunction with Sonatel, since 2001.
With Xam Marsé, Senegalese farmers, traders, hoteliers or housewives can now receive real-time information via SMS messages on their mobile phone, or the web, on the prices and availability of fruit, vegetables, meat and poultry, on any of Senegal’s markets.
Seydou Ndoye, a farmer from Keur Abdou Ndoye, a market town in the Niayes region of western Senegal, was one of the first users of Xam Marsé. After using the system for four years, his experience demonstrates that farmers can make use of innovative ICT solutions to secure their own economic and social development. The market at Keur Abdou Ndoye is a centre for the sale and distribution of fruit and vegetables, and is where local farmers and itinerant traders (banas-banas) gather to do their deals. ‘Before I started using Xam Marsé, I was forced to accept the prices quoted by the banas-banas, because I had no information about the real value of my produce’, Mr. Ndoye says. ‘During the first season I used the system’, he explains, ‘I quadrupled my net income from about 1.5 million to 6 million CFA francs’ (1000 CFA francs = €1.5).
How has he been able to do this? ‘I just check the market prices of products on my mobile phone, and I set my prices for the banas-banas depending on the actual market value, which I now know better or just as well as the people I deal with’, replies Mr. Ndoye.
Farmers, even those who are illiterate and have never used a phone, can master the technology within a few days. For a small service fee, subscribers to Xam Marsé are making full use of the accurate price information it provides in their negotiations with the banas-banas. Previously, they had little alternative but to accept the word of the traders, who usually offered prices distorted in their favour. As Mr. Ndoye recalls, ‘The first day I used Xam Marsé, I had 200 40-kilo bags of cabbages to sell. Although the banas-banas offered to buy them at just 8500 CFA francs a bag, I was able to bargain and eventually sold them for 11,000 CFA francs a bag. On that day alone I was able to increase my income by no less than 500,000 francs. After that other cabbage producers came to me to ask about the information I was getting from Xam Marsé’.
The accurate information provided by Xam Marsé – a service that is not available elsewhere – is now accepted as a point of reference that all parties can trust. As a result, the relations between producers and the banas-banas have improved and their exchanges have become more productive.
Market opportunities
Mr. Ndoye has since developed new strategies to improve his business, and so increase his income even further. ‘Once I had used the system for a few months, I learned how to gear my production to take advantage of new market opportunities. I decided to diversify my output by going into potatoes, fresh peanuts and green beans. I approached the local farmers’ cooperative, and asked for a loan of 3 million CFA francs. I was able to pay off that loan the same year thanks to an excellent crop of 40 tonnes of potatoes, which I sold for 200 CFA francs a kilo. In the second year I increased my income to 17.5 million CFA francs’, he says. ‘I quickly reinvested some of the profit in a mechanized irrigation system, and bought five electric pumps costing 700,000 CFA francs each. It also enabled me to farm a new plot of land measuring 6 hectares and to start livestock breeding. I now have 15 head of cattle’, he adds proudly.
While Mr. Ndoye is deeply happy of the business success he has achieved through Xam Marsé, he is equally proud of the social benefits he generates for him and his family. He enjoys receiving visitors and showing them his new farm equipment, as well as the solar-powered refrigerator and the television hooked up to a cable network. Mr. Ndoye, who cannot read French, but is good at figures, is especially pleased with the fact that for the last two years he has been able to send all his children to school, and that his eldest son is now a student at Dakar University.
Agricultural market information systems such as Xam Marsé are often discussed from a technical or operational point of view. But success stories such as that of Mr. Ndoye provide the most simple and best illustrations of how ICTs can bring many economic and social benefits for farmers, and are now contributing to the development of agriculture in Africa.
Daniel Annerose ( daniel.annerose@manobi.net ) is managing director of Manobi and Emile Sène ( emile.sene@manobi.sn ) is MIS manager of Manobi in Senegal. For more information, visit www.manobi.sn or www.manobi.net .
This project was first featured in ICT Update 9, January 2003
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