Participants from Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu considered next steps for the development of an MIS, and market information services that provide useful market access information, including crop price information, to agricultural market participants.
Technologies include mobile phone based and web-based mechanisms.
8 August 2011: The Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the European Commission International Trade Centre are working to improve access to information for small farmers and farmer organisations to facilitate increased market participation. To this end, SPC convened a workshop on the establishment of a subregional market information system (MIS) in Suva, Fiji, from 17-19 August 2011.
Participants from Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu considered next steps for the development of an MIS and other market information services that provide market access information, including crop price information, to agricultural market participants. Technologies include mobile-phone-based and web-based mechanisms.
During the workshop, UNCTAD also launched a new version of INFOCOMM, an online portal focusing on commodities. INFOCOMM provides free, concise, objective and updated commodity market information, allowing price information for agricultural products to be requested via text messaging.
According to SPC, these initiatives complement the e-agriculture concept endorsed by the Pacific Heads of Agriculture and Forestry Services in 2010. [SPC Press Release]