Open-air markets in the hinterlands of Kenya are not just venues for transacting business. Unlike the ones within Nairobi, Mombasa, and Nakuru, they are also meeting places for relatives and friends who end up passing information about their members from the extended family.
They are a stopover market for fruit and vegetables – these are delivered round the clock from all over the neighbouring regions and even neighbouring countries for those along the borders.
A similar scenario that is always witnessed is that, before dawn, retail traders and the owners of small stalls around the market arrive to buy their provisions for the day and take them back so as to be able to sell from opening time.
There is great competition for the freshest, the tastiest and the cheapest produce, especially vegetables and fruits, because most of the small stallholders have developed a keen eye for what is best to buy.
The vegetables are cultivated in kitchen gardens for domestic use, a practice that has persisted over several generations.
Surpluses are sold by small-scale female farmers, mostly in rural markets, to raise cash income to meet household needs. Most of these purchases are done by female traders who act as brokers and intermediaries who also end up selling the same to other places.
rural open markets
A closer look at most rural open markets justifies that agriculture plays a critical role in rural economies.
 |
| Markets Supply Chain via Booniyaad Project Report June 2013 |
Wangare Mumbi, a fresh fruit seller at Kamkuywa market in Bungoma County who has been in the business for over 20 years, says business is good, however, because of the market dynamics, they have to sell at a low price to their disadvantage.
“There are so many sellers of the same product; I am forced to reduce the price every month, there are so many bananas, this makes me sell at a loss.”
Leafy vegetables must be produced close to consumers due to the lack of facilities to preserve and transport perishable produce to the markets. The supply of these vegetables is also limited during the dry months.
Markets contribute to the four pillars of food security: availability, access, stability, and utilization.
In Kenya, open-air markets play a fundamental role in ensuring food availability and accessibility, especially in rural areas.
However, market liberalization has left many poor farmers in marginal areas with poor infrastructure and few marketing outlets, which has disadvantaged them.
Farmers cannot sell their produce at good prices and cannot buy due to high prices during the deficit or dry seasons.
This has eroded most farmers’ ability to cope with incidences of food insecurity. This is according to Ken Gatobu Mwithirwa‘s Thesis Influence Of Integration Of Open-Air Markets On Food Security In Meru South And Mbeere Districts, Kenya.
Improving efficiencies
Nduta Kweheria writes, why are farmers poor if agriculture is Kenya’s golden egg layer?
She says, first, small-scale farmers as taxpayers are paying Value-Added Tax (VAT) each time they buy seeds, fertilizer, pesticides, any foodstuff or other commodities they used to buy their homes.
They are also paying for licenses and various services and are taxed before they are paid for their produce.
So there is no doubt that small-scale farmers make up the taxpayers that contribute to the GDP, which explains the statistic that says that over 45 per cent of Kenya’s Gross domestic product (GDP) is from agriculture.
Despite contributing close to half of their monthly pay, the agriculture extension officer doesn’t show up to advise the farmer, often due to a lack of transport or poor supervision.
Secondly, when a private company sends a technical adviser to the farmer to offer the same advice that an agricultural extension officer should have given, the cost of this advice is hived off before the farmer is paid for her produce.
Naomi J. Halewood and Priya Surya, in “Mobilizing the Agricultural Value Chain,” they argue that:
“Improving efficiencies in the agricultural value chain is central to addressing these challenges. Increasing productivity in agriculture is also critical to reducing poverty. Greater productivity can boost farmers’ income, especially for smallholder farmers and fishers, who have limited resources to leverage in growing and marketing their produce.
Creating a more efficient value chain also requires engaging many stakeholders, from farmers growing crops and raising cattle to input suppliers to distributors.”
Farmers need access to reliable communication facilities and must meet high costs that come with large business operations, such as loss from spoilage, brokerage charges, and strict food safety standards.
“As information becomes more accessible through the use of mobile devices for stakeholders throughout the agriculture value chain, people are gradually moving toward more efficient ways of producing agricultural products, increasing incomes, and capturing more value by linking fragmented markets.”
“Key benefits include increased productivity and income for farmers and efficiency improvements in aggregating and transporting products. Although the mobile agriculture platform elements are emerging in developing countries, the full potential has yet to be realized.”
 |
The agony many traders undergo is an eye opener to the concerned parties in government to know that:
A poor household cannot market its products, obtain inputs, sell labour, obtain credit, learn about or adopt new technologies, ensure against risks, or obtain low-priced consumption goods without good access to markets.
The key to doing this is having access to new market opportunities as well as the complementary assets needed to take advantage of them while at the same time confronting new challenges.
The public sector has key roles to play as a legislator and regulator to ensure that markets do not discriminate directly against the poor, women, ethnic minorities, or other groups; combating corruption; creating a stable political and macroeconomic environment in which economic activity and trade can flourish; and ensuring the provision of key public goods, including rural transportation, communications, marketing infrastructure, market information, and rural education.
A small fruit farmer cannot increase the value she/he creates and takes home from the market unless the trader or processor who buys is also part of a higher-value chain.
The projects that have been most successful at raising small farmer incomes have involved creating a new equilibrium of interests along the market chain, in which the farmer is a participant.
The informal nature of the trade complements government initiatives to create jobs for those denied formal education or forced out of other employment. But will the informal nature of the trade be its downfall?
Whilst it is true that agriculture and livestock products provide society with employment, this is not reflected in revenue for the government. Put quite simply – it is not the government that reaps the many benefits of the Kamkuya market, it is the people.
This has also been well reflected in, The Farmer’s Perspective: Bridging the Last Mile to Market,” a Team Booniyaad Project Report June 2013. The report findings state that:
“The farmer’s existing knowledge and expertise, or their experience in the context of the local operating environment, is rarely taken into account when programs or solutions are designed.”
One, the farmer is an entrepreneurial business.”
“Every actively engaged farmer we met, whether big or small, growing cash crops or mixed-use, already upwardly mobile or just taking the first steps out of subsistence level survival, first and foremost think of themselves as entrepreneurs. The farm is their livelihood, a business activity whose returns must be weighed against the investments made in time and money.
As business people, farmers will grow what sells. Hence the prevalence of maize and beans is seen in the majority of the lower-income farms in Kenya. Demand is guaranteed for these staples in the local market.
Two, the farmer is a customer, not the beneficiary, of innovation:
“Mobile solutions seem to lack contextual relevance or value, they are less likely to be adopted, again acting as their own barrier to local impact.”
Subsequently, Naomi J. Halewood and Priya Surya say the mobile services cited here are simply tools and without the proper supporting pillars:
Business models – There is a need for increased funding to make business models until they can become financially viable.
ICT skills – Information needs in developing countries are highly localized; therefore, nurturing a domestic ICT skills base in the workforce is crucial to the development of mobile applications and services in the agricultural space.
Supporting infrastructure – To make the more powerful mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, more accessible and affordable, governments will need to ensure that the private sector is capable of offering mobile broadband services at affordable prices.
If well managed by serving the interests of the farmers and traders, open-air markets can play a valuable role in promoting and facilitating economic efficiency by facilitating exchange and coordinating many kinds of resources, goods, and services.
The Booniyaad Project Report reiterates that for the information to be of value to the farmer, it should be one that leads to rational choices.
“The farmer needs ‘relevant information that empowers him to make rational choices’.
However, they note that most technological models face different hurdles:
“Many projects still struggle to define actionable information to the farmer and her context, thus raising a barrier to understand the intent and value that the service can provide.”
This can only be achieved when the government will provide avenues to help the producers to find ways to engage in agricultural markets on more favourable terms, specifically: Moving into new high-value agricultural market chains.
This includes both access to new markets and the capacity to enter them and make use of existing agricultural markets; both access to agricultural input and output markets and the capacity to use them.
