INTRODUCTION
The Ghanaian economy is basically agrarian with agriculture being the largest sector of the economy
hence it contributes to 40% of the gross domestic products (GDP) and with the national government
earning huge foreign exchange from agriculture products and produce and it employs a very large
sector of the Ghanaian population and it is a sector of much importance to the entire country.
The lack of early and better transport system and network to effectively transporting agricultural
produce from farms and farming communities to cities and buyers centers is a major threat to food
security in Sub Sahara Africa as it is a major source of hunger, poverty and a major source of high
suicide deaths among tomato farmers in Ghana and many Sub Saharan African countries as harvested
food crops go bad due to late access to transport and whiles there is not better storage facilities at the
farms and the villages where such produce are located with the lack of effective transport system
making the situation even more critical.
e-Agri Transport In Focus
The innovative design and applications of Information Communications Technologies (ICT’S)
including computers, internet, sms and bulk sms alerts and messages on mobile phones of farmers to
effectively supporting smallholder farmers in our catchment communities in Ghana to facilitating the
early and better transportation of farm produce from farms to marketing centers and also the villages
(homes of farmers) has been a solution and a major boost in the once unreliable agricultural transport
setup in many farming communities in Ghana.
Harnessing very basic yet user friendly technological tools to supporting transportation of agriculture
produce has proven to be cheaper, faster, convenience , user friendlier and more importantly very
beneficial to all the stakeholders including the farmer, transporters , buyers, farming communities and
our project teams.
The Concept
A database has been compiled and created by our Project Team and this data is stored at our Data
Center and it is made up registration details and contact phone numbers of our individual members,
farming associations and transport owners and drivers who are responsible for the transportation of the
farm produce from the farms to the villages and also from the villages to the marketing centers.
1. Then messages and alerts via txt or sms are sent onto the mobile phones of members when
there is a request from either of our members and a confirmation will be sent to our short code
for confirmation to full- fill such a request. Field agents who are responsible for the collection
of such data are specially trained to serve also as mobile data center agents who send
information and details of registered members to the head quarters for processing, storage and
administrative purposes.
2. The drivers are registered and scheduled during the market days with their car numbers who
are numbered with numbers starting from one and when a driver returns from a delivery he
comes to join the que if drivers until it reaches his turn again for another deliver and the system
runs in-turns.
3. Farmers are encouraged to make prior orders and request for transport ahead of the market
days and generally it is first come first serve for the farmers as well and there is schedule
respectively however with regards to the farmers making orders, it is much more flexible and
not rigid as more drivers to farmers are much high with more cars and less farmers and there is
a high completion for business from the farmers.
Problem Statement
The challenge facing Smallholder farmers and commercial farmers in most farming communities in
Ghana are numerous however there are three main challenges which is evident and visible and has
been an impediment in the economic empowerment of farmers and these are the lack of access to
vehicle early to transporting the produce from the farms and villages to the marketing centers, the
second is the high cost of transporting such farm produce and farm animals as transporters charges
high rates due to the bad nature of the roads in the ordinary season whiles the situation is compounded
during the raining season.
As most vehicles do breakdown at times during the process of transporting such food produce and
sometimes cost for spare parts and workmanship are passed on to farmers or market women and in
some cases the vehicles breakdown during the process of transporting the food produce meaning if
such process is in the nights it becomes a security threat for both drivers and the market or farmers
involved in the transport of such farm produce.
As there is no official or direct marketing mechanism for farm produce and farm animals in Ghana and
most surrounding villages and towns hence the need to work with strategically marketing centers and
buyers of importance to facilities better marketing of Agricultural and farm produce to ensure
adequate income is earned by the individual farmers and boosting the economy of farming
communities and villages in Ghana and the projects catchment communities and towns nationally.
Aims and Objectives of e-Agri Transport in Ghana
The main aim and objective for the design and implementation of the e-Agri Transport Go Network
includes
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
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Providing a viable transport access to farmers in transporting farm produce from their farms to
their villages and selected market centers in boosting the economic standing of the farmers and
residents and our projects catchment communities through selling produce.
Another important objective of this project is to provide innovative marketing of the
agricultural produce through our access to the network of marketing centers we deal and work
with across Ghana as farmers in rural areas do not have the required capacity in selling and
marketing their farm produce.
As the lack of accessible and better means of transportation to farmers has been a major
driving force in the design and implantation of our innovation to counter this problem.
Non availability of direct and indirect marketing channels for farming and agricultural produce
in most farming and agricultural producing areas in Ghana is a source of motivation and
interest to our projects methodology of implementation.
The Importance of Roads in Agriculture Production in Ghana
An efficient and effective agricultural marketing and sales system will only be possible when there is
the availability of good Motorable roads for farmers and other road users in the agriculture sector for
the early transportation of farm produce at marketing centers to providing an important economic life
line for the farmer whiles it is directly linked with food security in the catchment areas and their entire
country that is Ghana.
The lack of early and better transport system and network to effectively transporting agricultural
produce from farms and farming communities to cities in Ghana and buying centers is a major threat
to food security in Sub Sahara African countries as it is a major source of hunger, poverty and among
high suicide deaths among farmers in many regions in Ghana as harvested food crops go bad due to
late access to transport and whiles there is not better storage facilities at the farms and the villages
where such produce are located.
Ghanaian farmers have been economically hit hard due to the bad nature of roads from farms and
villages to key marketing centers and inaccessible roads has been a key factor of the high post harvest
loses and has been a course to affecting the quality of farm produce as most of the food products
quality are affected during the process of transport.
Roads in majority of farming communities in Ghana are untarred, dusty, with big potholes and it
becomes very muddy and slippery during the raining seasons which effectively cuts off many farming
communities and settlements from the major buying centers where the food markets are located which
has greater economic impacts on the farmers and the producing communities as a whole.
The Ghana National Transport Access Survey (GNTAS) by the Statistical Services of Ghana shows
important indicators and information per household for all the ten (10) regions in Ghana on agriculture
producing homes and villages on challenges facing farmers and producing regions in Ghana.
Variables
Name
Label
HH1
Region
Question
File: Market access for agricultural produce in Ghana
Value Category
Cases Percentage
1
Western
490
10.8%
2
Central
317
7.0%
3
Greater Accra 105
2.3%
4
Volta
285
6.3%
5
Eastern
322
7.1%
6
Ashanti
535
11.8%
7
Brong Ahafo 432
9.5%
8
Northern
841
18.5%
9
Upper East 715
15.7%
10
Upper West 508
11.2%
Warning: these figures indicate the number of cases found in the data file. They cannot be interpreted as summary statistics of the population of
interest.
HH2
District
Bad roads in rural and farming communities in many African countries particularly Ghana is another
sources of hunger, poverty , hardships among citizens and this is much visible during the raining
seasons and the lack of the farmers ability to pay high prices for the cost of transporting agricultural
produce from the farms to the houses and villages is a major problem facing farmers annually across
Ghana and many other African countries dependent on agriculture both commercially and also for
subsistence levels.
Annual appeals and request from farmers for support from national government representatives and
agencies to assist in repairing such bad roads and with request for needed vehicles to transport their
agricultural produce has received no response which is similar to the situation in most developing and
African countries with very limited resources available to be spent on problems such as malaria
eradication and constructing shelters for students studying under trees, there is on one response to the
farmers from government agencies and that is they will have to find an internal and self solution to
such challenges meaning farmers will annually live with such problems for many years and maybe
decades and hope there will be an accident on day that will attract the national governments attention.
Market women and mostly the female farmers (constitute 70% of farmer workforce in Ghana) who
carry these food staffs on their heads from their farms which in most cases are very far from both
home and marketing centers sees inaccessible roads as a real hindrance in the quantity of food and the
quality of farm produce which they are able to send to the distribution points and the consumers are
less and thereby limiting the farmers ability to transport and sell more farm produce.
Deployment of the Initiative
Two organizational partners have been contracted to provide two key inputs for our project including
the required platform for the processing of the gathered data from the field to targeted drivers and
farmers whiles the second organizational partner is solely responsible for the needed bulk sms
information alerts and educational information to our targets as members from our organization have
been trained technically by these organizational partners to enable the service and system function
effectively whiles technical support is provided when required.
Citizen Volunteers on the Ground (CV)
 Data gathering have been done by field agents who are not full time employees of our
organization and are regularly referred to as Citizen Volunteers (CV’S) from catchment
communities including villages and towns where farmers transport food produce to market
centers
 There is a pool of young adults and members of such farming communities who are ICT
Literate and have graduated from Junior and Senior High Schools in our catchment
communities who are not able to fund the cost of further education and others who do not
intend to study further and are happy to get involved in our project for data gathering and
provision of other levels of support to our project to earn some income which is commission
base and in some cases support to the drivers on the farms to get some food crops for
themselves to sell or to send such food stuffs to their families for domestic use.
 Citizen Volunteers are recruited from the catchment communities and hence have good
knowledge of the various marketing centers, knowledgeable about the various transport owners
including, there have been a source of contact between farmers, our organization and the
transport owners as they facilitate mutually beneficial communications and partnerships for
sustainable business development among the key stakeholders hence the use of the concept of
the CV.
 Basic training in the use of computers for data capture, the use of GPS Systems on our mobile
applications which are equipped to direct drivers for location purposes and identifying the
towns in particular districts and regions in Ghana and other forms of basic technical training
are offered to the new field agents with direct and indirect support including supervision from
our project team to ensure accuracy and efficiency including customer satisfaction of service.
 Project field agents have been visiting prospective members to register farming associations
and individual farmers who are members of our organization and project, also members to our
system are a group of transport and vehicle owners both in the projects catchment communities
and the district capitals where the market centers are located to facilitate easy and cheaper
transportation of agricultural produce from the farms to the target market centers across our
catchment communities and towns in Ghana.
 Call credits in the form of units for use on their mobile phones are given to field agents as
rewards in addition to the commissions they earn on their services to the farmers and drivers
The e-Agri Transport Initiative Goal
Our main goal and aim in the design and implementing this project which is the e-Agri Transport
Initiative in Ghana is to providing a locally designed solution to meeting a pressing transportation and
marketing challenges of farm produce including other agricultural products of our farming
communities in Ghana whiles we also seek to replicate the concept in other African and developing
countries reliant on agriculture for commercial and subsistence levels.
Impacts
The impacts of this project has been very positive with important measurable results in the catchment
communities and implementing areas in Ghana, as the problem of locating and finding suitable buyers
for selected farm produce including farm animals have greatly been addressed by the project.
Packing food staff and crops from farms onto transporting vehicles has been identified as one of the
main courses of damage to the quality of such crops hence it is a requirement for all drivers involved
in our project e-Agri Transport to ensure maximum care in packing crops and produce to preserve the
quality of the produce which has a direct bearing on the cost of the produce as quality produce costs a
bit more than damaged once as this is helping farmers to earn more from using our service.
Farmers have prior information on markets in demand for their produce from Ashanti region and the
Brong Ahafo regions across districts with good market prices for their produce hence bring some
happiness and much needed income to farmers and increasing the economic situations of the local
communities and thereby creating direct and indirect employment opportunities for other actors who
are import stakeholders in the agriculture industry such as trucks responsible for short distance
journeys of products.
Replication and Sustainability
Linking farmers the need market centers on-time is a wider challenge facing farmers across Africa and
also in other developing countries whiles the lack of vehicles to facilitate the timely transportation of
agricultural produce from farms to villages and to marketing centers remains a major challenge to
farmers in Africa whiles the cost involved in transporting such produce has been a major deterrent to
other young adults who would have liked to venture into agriculture as a fulltime business.
This project is of greater importance to many African and developing countries whose economies are
dependent on agriculture and do not need huge funds to initiate such a project as there is the need to
build important partnerships and above all good management skills and the required technical
information and communications technological skills needed for such a project to be successful.
Multi-stakeholder Partnerships
Institutional and organization partnerships with key technical partners have been a very core of the
operation and implementation of the e-Agri Transport Initiative, partners have been involved in
training our project staff and field agents in key aspects of data capture and storage whiles other
institutional partners have also been responsible for the effective management of our bulk targeted
SMS information Alert System which have provided our project with key technical knowhow
including skills acquisition by our project teams and have strategically cut down operational cost of
the implementation and sustaining the project whiles important technologies has been transferred for
use and management by our organization that is the Foresight Generation Club.
Our us of Citizen Volunteers from catchment communities confirms our partnership and
collaborations with such communities to make them feel ownership of our work and working with
such communities who feels the such of the project is of greater benefits to them and their families is a
partnership we are seeking to expand and maintain.
Local Fm Radio stations in some of our catchment communities have been very supportive of our
activities and projects, such supports have been of greater benefits to our project, organization and the
other stakeholders hence we are working to expanding such partnerships and collaborations with the
local media in catchment communities as this concept has been very beneficial to our e-Agri
Transport.
The whole concept of Agri Transport is working in collaboration with key stakeholders in its
catchment communities and such a partnerships is important for the success and sustainability with
their important contributions for the project, among our partners are the district assemblies in the
catchment communities, chiefs and elders, Unions of Transport Owners, Heads of Market Centers and
leaders in the catchment communities and towns whose contributions has included tools , logistics and
transport assistance.
Farming/Agricultural Based Associations and Group Benefits/Advantages
It has been evident that during our projects implementation and replication in catchment communities
across beneficial towns in Ghana that farmers who tend to join farmer associations and forms groups
tends to derive many benefits including better negotiation on transport cost for members of the
associations and also getting corporate buyers for their farm produce which is good for them as it
prevents high post harvest losses as they get ready buyers for their produce as most of these farmers to
not have adequate storage facilities and spaces.
A practical example was when the Ghana Free School Feeding Program (GFSFP) in May 2007 came
into an agreement with a group of 25 farmer based groups in the WA East District of the Upper West
Region of Ghana as the project sought to buy 80 percent of the production of the group of farmers in
that association which was a boost to the economy of the local areas.
School children from Ghana benefiting from the effective production and food marketing innovations, eAgri Transport.
Financial Viability
The individual farmers and farming associations who are members of our network have to pay
registration costs to be a member of our project to benefit from our services, membership cost are also
levied on owners of vehicles and drivers as members of our network As the project is highly SMS
driven and uses mobile communications and selected Information Communication Technology tools,
our project is involved in the sales of phone cards, call credit and associated materials to enhance our
income generation to sustain the project and making profits to achieving a break-even point of self
reliant by 2016.
To expand our financial generation sources, the project is currently working to advertise and market
agricultural products such as fertilizers and farming inputs including tools such as pumping machines,
weeding chemicals, pesticides to farmers and subscribers of our network to generate further income
for the project and work on this is very advance stage which will be rolled out soon to support the
sales of such tools, items in our catchment communities and beyond.
Additional 10% of the total service cost paid to the drivers by the farmers is earned by our project as a
commission of the service rendered by us in providing the drivers with ready markets for the
transportation of agro produce, though not much however it has been very important in sustaining our
operational costs.
We have also learnt the availability of Ghana government funding for such start-ups and projects
designed taking into consideration employment creation for youths and young adults in agriculture and
we are currently working to accessing the funding mechanism which we are confident will be vital to
boosting our expansion and sustainability whiles improving early prospects of our targets for the
break-even point of profitability.
Currently we are seeking to expand the services beyond agricultural products to other challenging
sectors of importance in Ghana with replications interests nationally and regionally to generate
additional needed income.
Lessons Learnt
Stronger collaborations and partnerships with established institutional partners is very important in the
acquisition of important skills and experience needed in operating , sustaining and replicating start-ups
in countries where traditional funding sources for such entities are very limited or in some cases
unavailable.
Skills and Technology Transfer is a costly venture for new business and projects in developing
countries however such high cost could be solved through promoting the concept of training some
local talents properly to actively take key duties and responsibilities with supervisory responsibilities
by the implementing organization or entity as the concept have greatly benefited our project and
continue to impact positively on our operations.
Direct regular interactions between smallholder farmers, producer associations and lending financial
institutions encourages farmers to be committed and motivated in maintaining a healthy financially
sound agribusiness practices and approach and farmers have been very happy to of the regular
financial updates of the monies in their accounts and the updates of loan facilities available through
the mobile alerts on their mobile phones.
Among the most important lessons this project has learnt was the importance and the benefits of the
use of interns for start-ups as it is a useful means of recruiting qualified project personnel at a very less
cost to such projects who will provide very useful expert service to the project whiles such individuals
also gain the much needed working experience and working exposure demanded by employers.
Achieving breakeven point of profitably had been envisaged by our project much early however upon
our implementation and onward replication including better knowledge of our environments in which
we operate and our better understanding of our business model including improved assessments of our
market, it is advisable to envisage break-even point from 3-5 years as this is much logical.
At the Techiman Market in the B/A, Ghana which is the Biggest Food Market in West Africa
Multi-stakeholder partnership is very useful for a new project with scarce financial resources, logistics
and infrastructure to get support and assistance needed by such programmes, resources are acquired in
the short term through such partnerships including skills transfer.
There is the real need for project Managers of such ICT projects to have some working experience in
project management and more importantly some skills and experience in the better application of
Information Communications Technological tools in such projects and experience in human resources
and project management is vital to the success of such project and people management experience is
vital to the longevity and profitability.
Feed Back and Complaints
Whiles this project e-Agri Transport Networks seeks to provide an expert and value added services to
our members including farmers and transporters involved in the business of the Marketing and
Transport of Agro Products and Services, we are conscious of the prospects of lapses and the inability
of our field teams and other project staff in ability to meeting all expectations of clients and customers.
In order to improving on the projects delivery to customers we do accept complaints through our field
agents, directly through project supervisors at market centers or can also be made directly at our office
or through a normal telephone call and we will follow it up.
Also should a complaint be made about a particular agent, service or activity, such requests should be
made directly to our organization though our SMS Complaint Unit and also via normal phone call to
our offices as we treat such complaints and requests with all seriousness and to its resolve.
REFERENCES: Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), Home Grown School Feeding (HGSF), Foresight Generation Club,
Ministry of Agriculture Ghana, Ministry of Education Ghana, Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy 2002, Mr. Albert Yeboah
Obeng, Olarzu Communications Group Ghana, Adwo Sey, Mark Kwame Agbeko.
KEYWORKS: Youth in Agriculture Ghana, Foresight Generation Club, ICT for Food transport and Marketing, Albert
Yeboah Obeng, Olarzu Communications Group, Emmanuel Tawiah, eAgriculture Ghana, ICT Innovations in Agriculture,
e-Marketing and Transportation Ghana, Agricultural Business Startups in Ghana, eAgriculture Employment Opportunities.