Report back on: Agric Market Information Systems 2.0: Making it private, profitable and peer2peer – a presentation by Mark Davies, Tradenet.biz

 ‘Why source your maize from many small local producers in Africa, when with just one phone call it can all be shipped from Argentina?’ 

OK: I’ve paraphrased Mark Davies here. But I think it sums up two things: why Tradenet.biz was needed – and what it is beginning to change.  

Farmers need prices in order to compete in the open market. Product developer Davies realised that he could meet a real need. ‘Market information is complicated and frustrating – it’s extremely complex data,’ Davies says. ‘I realised that here was a great business opportunity to work in an area that I thought was interesting.’

A couple of years ago, he began working on Tradenet.biz, an information portal for African agricultural markets. Paying, registered users input and update agricultural market information into an online customised database: off-lorry prices, farm gate prices, market place prices, wholesale prices. In turn, users can request information relevant to them, which is then sent out to them in a text message.

‘These are real-time SMS uploads from the markets,’ explains Mark. And it means that the information is accessed by mobile phone – and not through an unreliable and costly Internet connection. 

TradeNet.biz is currently operating in 13 African countries. There are 439 commodities online. So far, there have been 650,000 price uploads. There are more than 5,000 registered users.

But the real evolution came when TradeNet.biz moved from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 based on an innovative peer2peer process.

‘The first version was a classic, top-down and centrally managed model,’ Davies says. ‘Was the data really accurate or relevant? What we needed to understand was the market itself, not just the NGOs’ needs.’ 

Davies realised that the people with the best data were the buyers, the sellers, and the producers – those in the market place themselves. ‘We needed to refocus,’ he says. ‘We had to get the participants to upload this data themselves.’

One important feature of TradeNet is that it’s not all virtual. A key factor in its success has been the establishment of permanent TradeNet.biz kiosks in market places. These kiosks act as information points – and the kiosk workers can also act as translators, greatly reducing the problem of the language barrier. In future, Davies says, these kiosks could create real opportunities for entrepreneurs, opening new kiosk franchises in villages. 

Despite initial reluctance, people are really beginning to see the value of what TradeNet has to offer. ‘It’s a powerful analytical tool,’ Davies says. ‘For the first time, we are able to get views of markets across countries, and we can begin to see the price differentials. But we’re really just beginning – we’re only three years into a five-year research and development phase.’  

There is anecdotal evidence that it’s working. Davies mentions that one trader in Nigeria commented:

‘You have turned our local market into an international market.’

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