Evaluation and improvement of farmers market information system to connect with some social stakeholders

Abstract

Large part of Tanzania population are rural smallholder farmers. Due to lack of market information, farmers sell their crops to middlemen at lower prices and hence don’t get enough profits. Previously we developed WEB and SMS (Short Message Service) based Farmers Market Information System using Waterfall model which replies farmers’ requests for market prices of crops through SMS. We then improved the system to enable farmers to access crop buyers’ details through SMS and crop buyers to access farmers’ details through SMS or WEB. In this paper we evaluate effectiveness of the system after implementing it in Tanzania in SWAHILI language. We also improve the system to enable farmers and crop buyers to access crop demand report before selling or buying crops. Findings show that the system helped farmers to increase incomes and access market information in shorter time. The system was also easy to learn and use.