SMS price infos to empower farmers

Farmers supplying the Dambulla Vegetable Wholesale Market (DVWM) will soon have short message service (SMS) alerts on their mobile phones that will regularly update them of price movements at the DVWM.

LIRNEasia’s Executive Director Dr. Rohan Samarajiva said that This will assist them in obtaining a better price for their produce. LIRNEasia is a think tank with a focus on using technology to better the lives of people living in "emerging" Asia-Pacific.

Dr. Harsha de Silva, LIRNEasia’s lead economist speaking at a seminar on farmer empowerment on Thursday, said that information is critical for effective functioning of markets and that ICT could improve efficiencies in agriculture markets.

He said that 72% of the farmer population will use telephones by the middle of the year.

"Our farmers are poor, but food is expensive," he said.

LIRNEasia’s Ms. Helani Galpaya said that even though 92% of Sri Lanka’s population have access to phones, only 8% of the calls made were for business purposes.

Samarajiva said that this project is being worked out with a mobile phone company whose name he didn’t want to divulge.

He said that it will encompass farmers living in the North Central Province, Central Province and North Western Province who generally supply to the DVWM, popularly known as the Dambulla Dedicated Economic Zone (DDEZ).

De Silva said that the DDEZ is the biggest vegetable wholesale market in Sri Lanka.

He said that DDEZ which occupies 12 acres of land has 144 trade stalls (Samarajiva said that the President recently gifted the 145th stall to a trader).

De Silva said that nearly 1,000 trades take place at DDEZ daily. It makes a daily turnover of between Rs. 30-40 million.

"But Dambulla has no bidding mechanism like the Colombo Tea Auctions, or the Amsterdam Flower market or the mandis in Andhra Pradesh.

However, recently, five large electronic boards were installed at the DDEZ which provides information of the last traded prices of vegetables in order to strengthen farmers’ bargaining power, said de Silva.