New technology is not always better. Sometimes simpler, more traditional communication technologies can provide the most effective solution to information sharing.
Small farmers often use village billboards to get information about prices. Market information billboards are a locally based effort promoted by the AMSDP that make information available for all. They are a variation on a Tanzanian tradition, the jua-kali, a Swahili term for office under the sun. Information is posted on the billboards by village council members and producer group leaders and market monitors, who are employed by the programme to monitor prices and activities at markets in their district.
But many producers complained that prices posted on the billboards were not always kept up to date. Producers need regular price updates, ideally once or twice a day, but most village billboards are updated once a week. Still, the billboards are an important source of information in many villages, and some group members are considering using mobile phones to get regular updates on market prices to be posted on billboards.
Twaha Abdullah Mweta is chairman of the village producer group in Magadini village, Hai district. He is responsible for updating the market information on the village billboard. Sometimes it takes longer to update the information because of communication difficulties, but we do our best nowadays, especially with the coming of mobile phones, Mweta says. Billboards may be simple, but before we began to use them most people received no news at all about market prices.
Everyone interviewed for the ICT diagnosis said they wanted better information about markets, especially up-to-date information on prices at local markets, as well as markets around the country.
Village billboards are an important link in an information chain that might eventually also include use mobile phones, radio, email and the Internet.
Source:IFAD
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