by The Fikiria Desk | Oct 6, 2022 | Farming
Ethiopia’s farms feed the country, yet the biggest constraint on many rural producers is not soil or seed but information and finance they cannot reach. On 6 October 2022, Safaricom Ethiopia began commercial service, adding a second mobile network to a market...
by The Fikiria Desk | Jan 13, 2022 | Farming
A farmer’s produce can cross a border faster than the farmer’s payment can come back. In East Africa’s food trade the perishable good moves on a truck within a day, while the money for it can take the better part of a week, looping through a third...
by The Fikiria Desk | May 22, 2021 | Farming
The distance between an Ethiopian farmer and a fair price has often been measured in missing information. Without a reliable connection, a smallholder in the highlands cannot check a market rate, arrange transport, or reach a buyer beyond the nearest town. On 22 May...
by The Fikiria Desk | Mar 8, 2021 | Farming
South Sudan feeds itself unevenly. Much of the country depends on farming, yet produce moves through long, informal chains where price information is scarce and finance is scarcer. A mobile network does not grow food, but it can change how food is priced, paid for and...
by The Fikiria Desk | Feb 27, 2021 | Farming
A farmer can sell a crop and still lose most of its value to the distance between field and payment. Somalia’s rural producers have long moved money by phone, yet the channel that carried their sales sat outside any formal framework, which limited how far it...