Agricultural Market Information Services (AMIS) and its implications on the rural community in Bangladesh : Theory and practice

By: M. Sirajul Islam (Cambodia)



Learn about the Project

Bangladesh, one of the developing countries in the world, is heavily depended on the agricultural sector. However, it is evident that like many other developing countries, farmers’ participation in the market is so poor that most of the time they are being forced to sell their products to local middlemen at abnormally low prices. Unfortunately, farmers have become the weakest and most neglected actor in this sector and economy as whole that influenced the researchers to introduce effective framework the empowering this weakest actor.

This is a multidisciplinary (socio-technical) research study mainly focusing on grounding theories and analyzing the existing knowledge. The specific aim of this research proposal is how the adoption of mobile phone technology empowers the Bangladeshi farmers in accessing the agriculture market information service. The hypothesis on correlation between the ownership of new media and poverty will be examined during the study. In addition, an evaluation methodology will be developed since a gap remains in the existing knowledge on analyzing the impact of new media on the society. The research approaches will be of both qualitative and empirical by addressing the corresponding research questions.

The major beneficiaries of this study will be the farmers, policy makers, system designers and researchers. The findings will have generalizability and thus can be replicated in the economies having similar socio-technical settings. Application of the findings can easily be implemented as the studies will be done with the cooperation of the Ministry of Agriculture of Government of Bangladesh.

This research will be the part of ongoing self-financed PhD study. The budget of this study is SIN $ 26,345 and expected to be completed by 22 months starting from the date of approval. A significant portion of this budget will be used for disseminating the results and sharing knowledge with the related stakeholders.

Research Objectives
The proposed project has multidisciplinary scope as it deals with various dimensions of rural community, technology and their governance. However, in order to make the research more rigorous and relevant, focus will be limited to the main actor of the rural community – farmers and their relationship to the easily and widely available mobile phone (media) technology with particular reference to the agricultural market information services.

  • Therefore, the general research objective will be based on answering the following research question:

How the adoption of mobile phone technology empowers the farmers of Bangladesh with respect to the access of agriculture market information?

Furthermore, the proposed research as part of its specific Objectives will find out the following research questions: These should be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely.

  1. What are the socio-economic and behavioral determinants of adopting mobile phones by the farmers of Bangladesh
  2. How the structure of traditional agricultural market information services changes with the adoption of new communication technology?
  3. What would be the methodological toolkit that can assess the impact of mobile phone based market information services?
  4. What are the impacts of mobile phone technology upon the farmers of Bangladesh?

Appropriate ways of answering the above questions from this project work will help to draw a theoretical framework that can address an insightful relationship between the weakest actor of the agricultural activities in the developing country and their adoption of new median technology. This will also narrow down the focus on the debate of ‘digital divide’ and development.

Findings (To be made available soon)

PI’s Current Progress (To be made available soon)