LAGOS: A team from the New York University in the US have arrived in Ghana to carry out a study on the impact of the Esoko platform in assisting farmers to gain easy access to agricultural price information. Selected farmers in the Volta region will be assessed over a period of three years to ascertain how marketplace information through the mobile phone has affected their livelihoods The Esoko was developed by software engineers in Ghana and allows different parties in the agricultural value chain to exchange real-time market information. The Managing Director of Esoko Ghana, Robert Owusu, believes the outcome of the impact assessment would widen the spread of the technology to more farmers in Ghana and beyond. “They have a group of 500 farmers who are receiving the message and another 500 who are not receiving the message. So over the three year period they will assess and see the changes in terms of their income, livelihood and in terms of their social wellbeing to see whether there is any difference between those who have information about market prices and those who don't have,” he stated. With numerous Esoko network agents in 38 Markets across the country, farmers can regularly receive current demands, prices of crops, and the location of seeds and fertilizers directly on their mobile phones. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/MVe2m Tags: Esoko, Farming, Ghana Section: Africa, Business, Latest News, Tech
