Mobile phones and marketing
Hello everyone, I teach at one of our public universities, but I am a livestock farmer in addition. During my routine consultation/informal meetings with (subsistence) farmers in my own village and surrounding villages, I am always confronted with people, on one hand, wanting information regarding availability of commodities or services, .e., who is selling his in-calf heifer, broilers, bull-calf, or who has a good breeding boar or bull in the village or neighbourhood, or where can I find the nearest vet or Artificial Insemination Service? On the hand, I face such questions as: "do you know anyone who would like to buy piglets? I have several of them.", or "my broilers have reached market weight, would you know anyone who wants broilers?", or "if I rear rabbits, will I have a market for them?", etc., etc. The problem is, by the time I find someone who has a bull-calf to sell, I have already forgotten who wanted to buy this animal in the first place! Clearly this indicated to me that they is lack of proper information flow between between would-be sellers and would-be buyers of products and services. So, an idea came to mind and wondered whether mobile phones would not come in handy to help solve this problem. Like the situation elsewhere in the developing world, almost all the farmers I have come across have mobile phones, or at least can afford one. This is where I would need help from fellow participants who have expertise in this area. My questions: Does my idea make some sense? Can some form of a "data base" with information regarding advertising, or inquiring about, availability products and services be set up which can be easily accessed using mobile phones? Such data base could cover a particular village, sub-county, or district, depending on the administrative units of a particular country. How could mobile-phone service providers come in in such a venture? How else could this issue be approached?
Hi Grace, About 3 months ago while traveling back to my rural province from a conference in Manila (Philippines), I had the chance to talk to a middleman/wholesaler of agri products. It was a long travel so we had a long conversation too. She's engaged in a buy-and-sell business: she buys fruits and vegetables in bulk from my province and sells them to small merchants in another province, and likewise buys livestock from that province and sells them to merchants in my province. In general, she was happy about mobile telephony as she was able to have constact contact with her family while she's away from home doing busness, but on the other hand, she was sad because of some reduction in her business opportunities. With cellphones, she said, her contact farmers are now able to determine quickly which traders within and outside our province offer higher prices. Many farmers, she said, are now transacting business directly to merchants, practically eliminating the middlemen/wholesalers in the chain. In the Philippines, middlemen/wholesalers play a major role in the product distribution chain from the producers to the consumers, and they generally earn more money in the process than the farmers themselves. There is this practice that middlemen/wholesalers loan out money as well as agricultural inputs and equipment to the farmers, with the agreement that the produce of the latter will be sold exclusively to the former. With mobile telephony, the farmers are now contacting financial institutions and their well-off relatives for their production capital and logistics. Also, the farmers' knowledge about the quantity and dates of delivery of products to buyers help them avoid the situation of bringing back their produce to the mountains or selling them at very low prices as most of their commodities are perishable. Jimmy
Another advantage that's been brought by mobile telephony to our farmers is the significant reduction in their frequent travels to our province's Farmers Information and Technology Services Centers. With their cellphones, they can now interact (text, voice and video) with our agri technologists and resolve issues and concerns instantenously. Except, of course in such instances where they need to go to the Centers for more information, or where the technologists themselves need to go to the farms to have a first-hand assessment of the complained situations. The early resolution of our farmers's problems (plant diseases and infestations) brought about a certain level of "safety net" against production risks and losses. Jimmy
Hi everybody, I think, that Grace question should be devided into three parts or aspects: 1) Cemercial questions: a) who will pay for the services, the buyer or the seller? b) what business modell should be used for the service provider? Profit oriented or non profit? 2) social questions: a) who will be the owner of the service organisation? Sellers, buyers, Government or independend financial partners? b) What markets should be aproached? Regional, national or international markest? 3) Technical aspects Technologie is important, but one can say, that any technology for any e-business is available if needed. Therefore, the questions 1 and 2 should be clearified before discussing any aspect on technologie. [/quote]
Hi Josh, I'm sorry to say that I don't actually know about the current status of DrumNet. But I CCed you on an e-mail to them and will report to the forum if anything useful comes up. =) Robert, Thanks so much for pointing me to Infotrade. It seems like a very promising project. Héléne Martin [email protected]