Connecting smallholders with dynamic markets: a market information service in Zambia

Simon Milligan, Alex Price, Eric Sommeling and Gerrit Struyf

Development in Practice, 2011, vol. 21, issue 3, 357-370

Abstract: Commodity markets have changed significantly in the past two decades, with smallholders increasingly requiring robust market intelligence to understand and secure benefit from the new environment. This article explores the approach to, and lessons stemming from, an IFAD-financed market information service in Zambia. It finds that by locating the service within a pre-existing institution with legitimacy and credibility, the service has secured the interest of a wide range of actors, and has better enabled smallholders and traders to access and utilise relevant, up-to-date, and actionable information to shape decision-making. The article concludes by discussing the key considerations that shaped the institutional analysis, and the issues that will influence the financial sustainability of the service.

Date: 2011
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09614524.2011.558058 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:cdipxx:v:21:y:2011:i:3:p:357-370

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/cdip20

DOI: 10.1080/09614524.2011.558058

Access Statistics for this article

Development in Practice is currently edited by Emily Finlay

More articles in Development in Practice from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().