A delivery system for food prices via mobile to be introduced

With the support of the National Institute of Statistics (INS), the Cameroonian Government, through the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Animal Industries, has launched a project for the establishment of an electronic system for gathering and disseminating food prices via smartphones on October 2015.

The project, financed by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, is part of an initiative to upgrade the skills of African countries in the use of mobile phones for data collection statistics.

In Cameroon, the project aims to limit price volatility in the Cameroonian markets while giving real-time housewives, who had other means of getting information, to make the best decisions to buy or sell.

This type of information system already exists in the cocoa and coffee sectors in Cameroon and allows players to receive information on the FOB and CIF prices of these products via SMS on their mobile phones.

According to the cocoa-coffee Interprofession Information System (RIS), these sectors has in recent years strengthened the bargaining power of producers and buyers; thus inducing a more attractive remuneration of the work force.