Malawi Agricultural Commodity Exchange Project

Elizabeth Manda, CEO
Sydney Kando
Tadala Tsilizani

Zambia Agriculture Commodity Exchange, Zambia
TNM Malawi (Mobile operator), Malawi
University of Malawi Bunda College, Malawi
SeedCo, Malawi
Malawi Broadcasting Corporation, Malawi
Kenya Agricultural Commodity Exchange, Kenya
Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, Malawi
Agriculture Commodity Exchange (ACE), Malawi

Rockefeller Foundation, USA
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, USA

Sydney Kando: sknado2[AT]yahoo.com/bdo[AT]ideaamace.com
Tadala Tsilizani:  tadalatsilizani[AT]yahoo.com/ sd[AT]ideaamace.com

To make markets work better for smallholder farmers in Malawi by providing two complementary services :

• provision of market information
• linking buyers and sellers of agricultural commodities
• building the capacities of farmers and staff

Initiatives Aimed at Promoting both Inputs and Outputs Markets: The case of MACE Project of IDEAA.  The IDEAA Program is implementing a project called the Malawi Agriculture Commodity Exchange. The project is aimed at making agriculture markets work better for smallholder farmers by lowering the huge risks and transaction costs that hinder market development. The specific objectives include the following: facilitate linkages between sellers and buyers of agricultural commodities; empower farmers, and other market  participants with relevant and timely marketing information and intelligence that enhances their bargaining power and competitiveness in the market place; and provide a transparent and competitive price discovery mechanism. The major expected impact is enhanced farm productivity, incomes, food security, reduced poverty and wealth creation among poor farmers and the national economy.  The program is a public/private sector lead initiative because of the high levels of poverty hence not viable to be implemented on a commercial basis; and it is also however difficult to guarantee its sustainability if implemented on public good principles because of the failures of past initiatives once donor funding dries up. The program is commodity neutral covering a number of important agricultural commodities because farmers deal with many agricultural crops and commodities; and also because of the diversity of agriculture commodities found in Malawi by region. Initially three market information centers have been opened in Limbe, Lilongwe, and Mzuzu. The project is being implemented in collaboration with International Crops Research Institute for Semi Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Sasakawa Global 2000 and Telekom Networks Malawi Limited which is a Mobile phone service providers.

The project has been active since September 2004. Both buyers and sellers are using the services. It uses various channels such as Market information centers, radio, website and Short Messaging Service. Small farmers because of their low volumes are encouraged to bulk their produce as a group so that they could be able to sell to large buyers who require large volumes. A lot of trade is taking place through the system and there is hope that as time passes a lot of international buyers will be able to use the system.

Agro Dealers
Smallholder farmers

Sms ; IVRS – interactive voice recognition system; website

Planning to expand the system to have a web interface and IVRS, digital media

Staff at markets capturing data