Funding Organization: University Research Board (Extension Service Committee)
Brief description of the project:
Timely access to market information is one of the most critical factors influencing the performance of agriculture in Zimbabwe. Plugging this knowledge gap will enhance and diversify livelihoods of smallholder farmers. At the moment, both smallholder and commercial farmers in potentially high production areas like Mashonaland Central Province are severely constrained due to poor access to useful market information. This is contributing to information-related problems such as moral hazard and adverse selection which increase transaction costs and subsequently impede participation in markets by the majority of farmers. On the other hand, established ICT-based knowledge sharing platforms have remained underutilized due to absence of contextualized Communities of Practice (CoPs). Each district can have several CoPs whose roles include generating and sharing knowledge.
It is against this background that the Department of Agricultural Economics, Education and Extension proposes to create a sustainable virtual agricultural Market intelligence centre for Mashonaland Central Province. Besides raising the profile and demonstrating the relevance of BUSE to Mashonaland Central Province where the university is based, the centre will be anchored on an ICT-based platform comprising a bulk SMS facility, a mobile application, website and physical space where agricultural stakeholders in Mashonaland Central Province can walk in and out with knowledge.
Research Team Leader: E. Zivenge email: ezivenge@gmail.com
Other Team Members:
- V.T Munyati
- Never Mafuse
- Dadirayi Manyumwa