Global IssuesCAMEROON: Profits Were Only a Phone Call Away
These are awkward times for the men in the middle in Cameroon's Western Highlands. A profitable niche buying produce cheaply on farms, and supplying farmers with seed and fertiliser at premium prices has been shattered by the sound of a cellphone ringing.
Mama Therese was typical of farmers in Santa commune - dependent on brokers to purchase her potatoes, and the same people took quite a lot of her money back as payment for badly-needed sprayers, pesticides and improved seed.
She could never know the prices her potatoes fetched in distant markets, or the mark-up the traders were putting on the farm inputs.
'This has been our biggest problem,' she said.
Then Thierry Njepang showed up. Njepang is a resource person with a project funded by GenARDIS (Gender, Agriculture and Rural Development in the Information Society).
'We thought that in this fast-moving world, it was necessary to put at the disposal of these village communities, a communication tool, namely, the mobile telephone,' said Njepang.
GenARDIS teamed up with the SB Mathur Foundation in a six-month project to provide women farmers in Santa district in the North West, and in Bangang, Bafoussam and Kamna districts in Cameroon's West Region with cellphones with which to gain access to valuable market information.
'We taught them how to make a call and how to send an SMS in order to get vital information in real time,' said Njepang.
'They were interested in knowing how much what they produced sold for in the national and international market; and how much farm inputs like fertilisers and pesticides cost; how much they could pay to get their produce to some markets and so on.'
The GenARDIS project identified existing groups of women farmers in Cameroon's Western Highlands, as well as people in the cities of Douala and Yaoundé, far to the south, where the women's produce - chiefly potatoes and maize - is ultimately sold.
The project began with a survey of the women's use of information and communications technology; it was discovered that while men made decisions over purchasing things like phones and radios, women dominated the actual use of these items. None of the 100 women surveyed had used ICTs to ease their access to farm inputs, track market information or get advice from agricultural extension workers.
The potential usefulness of a mobile phone was explained, and the women were put in contact with the city-based resource people.
Ma Theresa says the farmers quickly came to understand the role farm traders had been playing in separating the women's hard work from the full value of the fruit of their labour.
According to Theresa, they found the quality potato seed they were paying brokers the equivalent of 40 cents a kilo for, was available directly from government extension services for half the price. The cost of other inputs was a similar story, especially when the groups could coordinate placing bulk orders for fertiliser, or rely on their contact in town to find the best available deals for them.
'When people come from town claiming that the prices of foodstuffs have dropped in the market, I just make a phone call to the specific market to demonstrate that the person is telling a lie,' she says.
'Instead of giving away a 15-litre bucket of potatoes for the usual 2,000 CFA francs (a shade under $4), we will now only part with our potatoes at CFA 3000, because those who buy from us to sell in Yaoundé or Douala will get at least CFA 5,000 for them do so for at least CFA5000 ($10.6).'
Njepang boasts that the project is steadily improving livelihoods in these communities. 'The systematic elimination of middlemen who used to exploit the farmers is effectively putting more money in the pockets of the farmers.'
There are concerns that the gains could be short-lived because many farmers are be too poor be able to afford a phone of their own. Njepang said only a handful of the women who took part had mobile phones during the six months pilot programme, with a phone belonging to one member of the group often serving all of them.
He said that SB Mathur Foundation staff have encouraged women to set aside money each week to buy mobile phones, a basic handset being available for little more than $40.
'If you have a group of 20 women who decide that every week, each of them will contribute CFA 1000 ($2) and the pot will be used to purchase a cell phone for one of the members,' he says, 'by the end of a month, four members would be mobile phone owners.' In five months, all twenty will be equipped.
The value of being connected is apparent in the lengths the women go to use their phones. Some of them live in areas where there is no cell phone coverage or electricity. They trek long distances to recharge their battery or pick up a signal to make a call.
The project has made a tangible difference in the lives of the five districts.
'Rural farmers in these village communities are now increasingly using the mobile phone and other ICTs to access agricultural information,' said Njepang.
The only losers? The middlemen who now find themselves on the fringes...
© Inter Press Service (2010) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service