NORTH-WEST AGRICULTURAL MARKETING ASSOCIATION (NAMA) WORKSHOP - 25/11/2008 PRIORITY CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES Information Credit Export Market Development Operation of the Association HOW CAN CCPMP PROJECT HELP? Information Credit Export Market Development Operation of the Association SMS AND MARKET INFORMATION FrontlineSMS NAMA Market Information MJP & SMS MHITS INTERNET COVERAGE

NORTH-WEST AGRICULTURAL MARKETING ASSOCIATION (NAMA) WORKSHOP - 25/11/2008

The workshop was held at the Ministry of Commerce offices in Battambang with 10 participants from NAMA.  It was conducted as part of a development project funded by ACIAR (Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research) entitled Cambodian Crop Production and Marketing Project (CCPMP).  

 

The workshop was facilitated by:

Professor John Spriggs, AISC, University of Canberra, Australia

Dr. Robert Fitzgerald, AISC, University of Canberra, Australia

Mr. Steve Gniel, Research Assistant, University of Canberra, Australia

Mr. Nou Keosothea, Graduate Student, University of Canberra (and CDRI, Cambodia).

Also in attendance as members of the CCPMP project were:

Mr. Greg Secomb, CARE International, Pailin

Mr. Ly Botheun, CARE International, Pailin

 

The basic objectives of the workshop were to determine:

• what the representatives of NAMA consider to be the priority challenges and opportunities for the association; and
• how the CCPMP project might be able to help with these priority challenges and opportunities.

 

PRIORITY CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES

Mr. Gniel led off by presenting a discussion paper based on earlier preliminary interviews with members of the association.  Following Mr. Gniel’s presentation, the participants had an in-depth discussion which resulted in the following list of priority items:

• Information (marketing, weather & other)
• Operation of the Association
• Credit (working K, loans to farmers)
• Export market development
• Value added processing
• Building farmer relationships
• Post-harvest technologies
• Transportation costs

 

From this list, the participants were asked to choose the four top priority challenges and opportunities: They were:

• Information
• Credit
• Export market development
• Operation of the Association

 

The participants then engaged in detailed discussions of each of these four top priorities and came up with the following discussion points:

Information

Want to know where NAMA can get reliable information

• want to establish/be in a network that connects them with local authorities and relevant institutions
• want to establish a market information centre

Credit

• Want to build relationship with RDB and other potential lenders of cheap credit
• Noted that RDB has already provided loans in past (to Malai silo)
• Need to develop a good business plan for Association and a clear NAMA organization structure (as a prerequisite for accessing cheap loans)
• Want to provide low-interest credit to association members

They already have obtained a group loan (for farmers) where the group guarantees loan for each member who obtains loan

Export Market Development

• They need regulation from government to enable them to export without restraints at the border – i.e. eliminate border fees
• Association needs to be registered as company with government
• Need export certification if they are to access formal export markets - currently they only export into informal  markets
• Need to find and build relationship with buyer abroad (develop buying partners)
• They commented that Thai companies buy Cambodian grain and then repackage for export under Thai label (i.e. as made in Thailand).
• Association needs to educate farmers to produce good quality product.  Currently the grade of maize is #4 or #5 which is stock feed and is half the price of #1 and #2 grade maize
• Part of problem is farmers don't use good seed - they may use their own production from previous year or else buy unbranded seed which is often poor quality.  The good seed comes from CP but often farmers can't afford this
• Need to improve storage facilities - small storage rooms are better than big rooms
• There is limited capacity for drying maize in western Cambodia.  Thus a lot of grain is sold wet to Thai traders at a price discount.  
• Road is very bad and Association wants farmers to share in cost of improving road - if road is better than can drastically shorten the transport time to silo and hence reduce loss in quality - maybe have a toll road - charge fee for better road.
• Association sees need to reduce transport cost to Thailand - A lot of farmers’ grain is sold to Thai traders in Cambodia on the cob with high moisture content.  This means a big share of the transport cost is wasted as they are shipping the cobs plus water which account for about 30% of total weight of corn.  Association sees a need to expand drying and dehulling capacity in Cambodia so as to reduce transport costs (NOTE: maybe we need to look at benefits and costs of investment in dehulling machine and flatbed dryer.)

Operation of the Association

• Want to improve organizational structure – establish an organizational chart
• Want to find an experienced leader
• Want to establish a demonstration farm
• Want to establish a market information centre
• Want training (for executive?)

HOW CAN CCPMP PROJECT HELP?

Information

In the afternoon of the workshop, Dr. Fitzgerald introduced a proposal for setting up an SMS server in the Association at both the Pailin silo and also the Kamrieng silo to assist with the development of a low-cost market information service.  This proposal was warmly received by the workshop participants.

 

Ly Botheun (CARE International, Pailin and member of the CCPMP project) has agreed to work to help establish the servers under the supervision of Mr. Greg Secomb (CARE International, Pailin) and Dr. Fitzgerald.  

 

(NOTE: It appears the association members already have a lot of knowledge among them on the process of getting loans and not sure we have much to contribute here as researchers - it would appear to be more appropriate for them to obtain services of a consultant rather than a research team for this activity)

 

After the workshop, the project team discussed the various priority ideas proposed by the members of the association and this is our response:

 

Credit

It was felt that NAMA is already well advanced in their understanding of how to obtain low-interest loans and we have already conducted research to establish a working model for obtaining low-interest loans in our work with the Ta Ong soybean association.  Thus we believe this is outside our mandate as a research project and is really more a consulting project.  

 

Export Market Development

We propose to undertake a study of the problems in exporting grain to third countries through Thailand.  Some silos have tried to do this but have been frustrated by red tape and burdensome hidden costs and constraints even though it appears on the surface to be possible (apparently Cambodian grain already is exported to third countries but it is first sold to Thai companies which then repackaged as Thai grain and then onsold overseas).  This paper could be used as a background paper to assist NAMA in its quest for government support to access export markets outside Thailand.

 

Operation of the Association

We propose to:

• Prepare a background paper for NAMA on alternative approaches to its operation
• Propose to ACIAR for supplementary funding for the general managers of the 3 silos involved to look at alternative models overseas (e.g. two-tier cooperatives, new generation cooperatives)

 

SMS AND MARKET INFORMATION

 

FrontlineSMS

Dr Fitzgerald has been in regular contact with the developer of FrontlineSMS, Ken Banks. He is the founder of kiwanja.net (http://www.kiwanja.net) and has been working for the last 15 years on the application of mobile technology to support positive social and environmental change in developing countries, especially Africa. He has developed FrontlineSMS (http://www.frontlinesms.com), a field communication system designed for small-scale non-profit organizations. kiwanja.net has been awarded a complimentary membership and invitation to the 2008 Clinton Global Initiative (CGi) annual meeting that was held in New York recently. We have been talking to Ken for some time and in the last few months I have been trialling his system. The plan is to use FrontlineSMS to setup a number of field communication systems as part of the CCPMP project. I would support each system as part of the CCPMP project and while this project is primarily focused on marketing and production goals, there are many opportunities for system to be used in other areas such as rural health information needs (e.g. TB alerts).

NAMA Market Information

Professor Spriggs has written to Mr. Sa Chamroun, Chairman, North-West Agricultural Marketing Association (NAMA) and Manager of the Pailin Grain Silo to report on the workshop and identify three areas for future collaboraton:

• information – establish an SMS-based market information service
• export market development
• operation of the association.

Dr Fitzgerald has sent SMS equipment and software to Greg Secomb with instructions on how to setup a SMS server at the Pailin silo. A meeting is planned with Dr. Rob Fitzgerald, Mr. Greg Secomb, Professor Spriggs and Mr. Sa Chamroun on February 12 or 13.

 

MJP & SMS

Dr Fitzgerald has had preliminary conversations with Stephen Bognar from MJP about setting up an SMS server at the MJP headquarters to facilitate field communications and information needs. This server could be used for a number of purposes including CCPMP production & marketing work, general MJP field communications including health & education work. To enable this the CCPMP marketing team would provide a GSM modem, support to install and configure the SMS server software and training and on-going development. MJP would need to designate a person to work with the Marketing Team and locally manage the SMS server (only basic IT skills are required). They would also provide access to existing basic windows computer (desktop or laptop) and purchase a sim card (e.g. Starcell and/or Mobitel) and meet ongoing sms charges.

MHITS

SMS-based micro-payment system – we are currently looking at an SMS-based micro-payment system (for payments less than $100) that basically allows a mobile phone user to send small amounts of money to another phone user (http://www.mhits.com.au), akin to an electronic wallet. I have been working with the developer Harold Dimpel over the last few months to work up a proposal for using it in Cambodia. There are number of additional ways we could use it such as each time a farmer attends a field training system they receive a number of points (akin to a professional learning credit) that they can exchange for services or goods at a later time (e.g. Health etc).

 

INTERNET COVERAGE

We are getting quite a bit of interest in our sms work in Cambodia using FrontlineSMS.

1. Ken Banks has written about it in “Cambodian farmers turn to their phone”
2. MobileActive.org covered it in Frontline SMS Review
3. Internet & Democracy Project at Harvard University in Frontline SMS Launches New Version, Continues to Foster Change
4. My presentation in November 2008 to the Northwest Agricultural Marketing Association (Battambang, Cambodia) is getting a number of hits. See: http://www.slideshare.net/rfitzgerald/ccpmp-sms-communications-presentation