Farmer bargaining power and Agricultural Market Information and Services (AMIS)

Godwin Yao Fenoo

Bachelor's thesis

Abstract:

Marketing of agricultural products has become a major challenge for most smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan African. Among the marketing constraints faced by these farmers are lack of access to market information, information asymmetry, poor organization of inputs markets and low bargaining power. The study analysed farmers bargaining power within the agricultural marketing chain and identified role of agricultural market and information services (AMIS) amidst farmers bargaining power in some selected developing countries within the Sub-Saharan region. Information used for the thesis were obtained from the secondary datasets obtained from scientific databases of Thomson Reuters and Science Direct as well as Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), World bank and Internal Monetary Fund (IMF). The results show that, some AMIS provided information on a limited range of commodities, while others cover a wider range of cereals, vegetables, tubers and other staple and cash crops. Also, information on products prices did not increase or reduce transaction cost of producers. In addition, information on products prices did not increase or reduce transaction cost of producers. However, it improved the producers bargaining power. We also found that farmers who are regular users of AMIS received significantly higher prices more than the prices received from the producers who were not regular users of AMIS. Since small-scale farmers encountered numerous output market challenges such poor access to marketing information (e.g. products prices) and are often exploited by market intermediaries usually at farm gate prices, the study suggest the need to encourage small-scale farmers to patronise Agricultural Market and Information Services in both government and private sectors to attain useful information about the production to obtain higher products price which will subsequently increase their incomes and contribute to improved livelihood within the Sub-Saharan region and beyond.

Keywords

Agricultural Market Information Services, agricultural producers, bargaining power, agricultural markets, traders

Language used: English

Date on which the thesis was submitted / produced: 18. 4. 2019

Thesis defence

• Supervisor: Ing. Alexander Kandakov, Ph.D.

Czech University of Life Sciences Prague

Faculty of Tropical AgriSciences

Bachelor programme / field:
Tropical Agriculture / International Cooperation in Agriculture and Rural Development