|
|
 |
 |
| |
 Printable version |
Information and regulation in the Senegalese vegetable commodity chain |
Cahiers Agricultures. Volume 13, Number 1, 148-57, Janvier-Février 2004 - L’alimentation des villes, Étude originale
|
 Résumé
Article gratuit
|
Author(s) : Idrissa Wade, Hélène David‐Benz, Johny Egg |
Summary : The horticultural sector faces strong market instability, vegetables being highly seasonal and perishable. In Senegal, market gardening has been growing fast over the past decade. This growth has been stimulated by a growing urban population, the devaluation of the CFA Franc and the crisis of the rice sector in the Senegal river valley ‐‐ which prompted rice producers to diversify their crops. However, farmers face high marketing risks : during the harvesting season, prices collapse due to the massive entrance of products on the market. In such a context, it is very difficult to anticipate the level of prices and short term fluctuations. This places farmers in a position of weakness regarding intermediaries. Aimed at public and private sector actors, several devices (
e.g. radio broadcasting) were set up so as to improve the dissemination of information and to increase market transparency. In 2002, a private company (
Manobi) implemented a system based on new information technologies that provides vegetable growers and fisheries with fast access to market information. Various economic theories justify the broadcasting of market information. However, market information systems (MIS) raise several problems. Several studies show a gap between the craze for these devices and the results effectively obtained. While some authors argue that such failures are related to technical weakness of MISs, others underline the limits of an action limited to information broadcasting. To overcome this problem, one suggestion is to support existing dissemination related to traditional market institutions, rather than create exogenous systems. In this paper, we try to determine the impact of MISs on the organization of the vegetable commodity chain. Various forms of coordination are used by the actors to manage uncertainty.
Coxers are specialized in gathering information related to rural and urban wholesale markets and for transport negotiation. Paid by the unit, they limit their own risk and their partners‘ uncertainty. In other cases, interlinked transactions involving fertilizers and seeds provide inputs to producers despite the deficient credit market, and secures the merchants‘ access to products ‐‐ both in terms of quantity and quality. As in many other countries, the information transmitted by MISs is of little use for Senegalese market gardeners. The more targeted information communicated by
Manobi allows producers to improve their negotiation capacity. But it does not change the existing features of coordination, as they are not only determined by information needs, but also by social links, access to credit, terms of payment, transport facilities, etc. We argue that
Manobi is more developed where
coxers are less represented, because MISs try to mitigate information deficiencies where market information devices are weak or lacking. |
Keywords : Economy and Rural Development\; Farming Systems. |
|
