Rwanda » Technology

E-soko project expands- Rwanda

May 23, 2011   ·   0 Comments

By Ruth Kang’ong’oi

The Ministry of Agriculture has announced that the electronic platform giving farmers, consumers and traders up-to-date market price information for commodities using mobile phones ( the e-Soko project) will be extended to 20 more markets bringing the total coverage to 70 markets countrywide.

The e-market which was mainly introduced to provide market information and bridge the information gap to address some of the supply constraints in Rwanda allows farmers, consumers and traders to access up-to-date market price information by SMS and is now widely used.

Through this, the public is able to follow price trends for commodities by enabling them to make informed decisions regarding production and marketing of their produce. Wilson Musonera, the E-soko system Administrator indicates that they  currently cover 50 markets and 20 more are in the pipeline.

agriculture is the principal foreign exchange earner in Rwanda. However, production is largely subsistence; characterized by an information gap from both the supply and demand sides of the production chain.

This system is open to everyone on the MTN Network and one simply sends an SMS using the 7656 code, to know the latest price of a particular commodity.  Though the application is in Kinyarwanda, Musonera notes that the English version will be introduced before the year ends.

e-Soko was created to address the problems of lack of information on current prices of agricultural products and to minimize unnecessary price hikes for consumers hence eliminating the use of brokers or  middlemen who take advantage of ignorant farmers by hiking market prices.

figures from Rwanda Development Board (RDB)-IT department show that 7,100 farmers, traders and consumers in the country are using the service.

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