ECOWAS, UEMOA train agro dealers on data collection

30 August 2010, The Nation
URL: http://thenationonlineng.net/web3/business/11324.html

ECONOMIC Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the West Africa Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA), recently conducted a two-day capacity building workshop for agro inputs dealers in Nigeria on the collection of agri inputs prices for its market information initiative called Agricultural Information Systems (AGRIS), a system that will provide timely information on agri-inputs with the objective to empower agro dealers and farmers in the region to make informed decisions on what agri-inputs to buy and where to buy them.

The training which was held in Kaduna and Ibadan with agro inputs dealers drawn from across the country was facilitated by International Center for Soil Fertility and Agricultural Development (IFDC) through the MIR Plus (Marketing Inputs Regionally), a joint project of ECOWAS and UEMOA aimed at facilitating the development of a regional agri-input market in West Africa. In the last six years, IFDC has been providing technical assistance to ECOWAS and UEMOA in this area. The MIR Plus project is the second phase of this assistance.

AGRIS is a unifying tool that collects, organizes and disseminates the information available from the West African institutions, in at least five national and regional categories of information systems: POL (Systems for Monitoring and Evaluation and Policy Implementation), SAP (Early Warning Systems), MIS (Market Information Systems), SIP (Information Systems on Production) and STAT (Information Systems on macro-economic data). It is therefore a dynamic instrument for monitoring the performance of the agricultural sector in West Africa, which is expected to provide up to date information for the development, monitoring and evaluation of all activities and initiatives undertaken in the context of the implementation of ECOWAP/CAADP.

The project effort in this regard focuses on working within the framework of ECOWAS Agricultural Information Systems (AGRIS) to facilitate the collection and dissemination of monthly prices for key agri-inputs in the major trading centers of the region in collaboration with associations of agricultural input dealers, as well as a web space open to buyers and sellers of inputs to make known their demands and offers, to input suppliers, farmers’ associations to promote their products and services, and providing trade directories.

The facilitator at the workshop, Mr Malick Lompo, Market Information Specialist of the MIR Plus Project, said the training programme was to strengthen the capacities of the agro inputs dealers on how to collect data from the field and use the internet to post the agri- inputs price information to a common platform.

Lompo noted that prior to the training programme, a technical meeting and a national roundtable were held with agro-dealers and public sector representatives in Nigeria during which a proposed methodology and tools for the collection, the transmission and the distribution of the agri-input information, a relevant list of key products (seeds, fertilizers and CPPs) to be monitored in Nigeria, the list of locations where the information will be collected were discussed and validated.

The training of the agro dealers was achieved through the collaboration of agro dealers associations in the country from which the trainees were selected. Part of the training included lectures on the methodology for agri -input price data collection, use of the data price collection template, use of Ms Excel and internet operations. The agro- dealers also conducted a pilot test on the field by visiting agri inputs shops where they put to use their acquired skills on price data collection.

Other areas of intervention of the Marketing Inputs Regionally (MIR Plus) project are creating an enabling environment for competitive production and trade of agri-inputs, promoting innovative agri-inputs technologies and marketing practices and building farmer’s capacity for greater and efficient use of agri-inputs.