Farming in Afghanistan means doing business in a climate that can range from dysfunctional to deadly. Years of war and disorder have wrought havoc on the nation’s agricultural markets. Infrastructure such as energy and roads often doesn’t exist, crippling basic commerce and transport. 

One glaring breakdown in the agricultural system is the fact that farmers are often cut off from market signals and incentives, and therefore unable to respond to them in terms of production and marketing strategy. For years, they simply have not known how much farmers elsewhere are charging on the open market, or what the market is willing to pay for their products. Such ignorance hinders their competiveness and drives down profitability all along a given value chain.

But the rise of mobile networks—easy to set up compared to landline infrastructure and hence widely available—offers a readily accessible way to deliver data through SMS technology. In 2007, this possibility inspired the creation of TAMAS, a market information system developed by the DAI-led Alternative Development Program-Eastern Region (ADP/E). TAMAS uses mobile phones, radio, and email to deliver farm prices from Kabul, Asadabad, Jalalabad, and Mehtarlam in Afghanistan, as well as Peshawar in Pakistan. Within seconds, farmers can access the prices of dozens of commodities from wheat seeds in Mehtarlam to cauliflower in Kabul and eggs in Jalalabad. 

TAMAS proved successful enough that DAI is expanding the system in Afghanistan under ADP/E’s successor program, Incentives Driving Economic Alternatives for the North, East and West (IDEA-NEW), which like ADP/E is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development. The new system tracks farm prices from the northern and western parts of the country, including from Herat, Baghlan, Badghis, Mazar-e-Sharif, and Kunduz. 

As with ADP/E, the system is helping farmers respond to market incentives, make better cropping decisions, and increase their bargaining power. The daily price data enables them to better decide whether to sell products in the local market, add additional transport and packing costs to access higher-value customers in larger cities, or sell to exporters.

IDEA-NEW collaborates with the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock to collect, analyze, and disseminate wholesale and retail prices for seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, animal feeds, fruits, vegetables, and meats. A price monitor in each market collects wholesale and retail prices of commodities every morning and sends them to a TAMAS administrator, who receives price reports from all the markets by 8 a.m. It takes about an hour for the administrator to refine and insert the data for subscribers who receive daily prices by email. Others can request the prices through their mobile phones.

Each day, TAMAS receives 60 to 80 price requests through SMS and provides wholesale and retail price data for 65 commodities, including apples, apricots, cabbages, cauliflowers, cucumbers, eggplants, garlic, grapes, green beans, loquats, marrows, okra, onions, plums, pomegranates, peppers, pumpkins, tomatoes, turnips, urea, and wheat.

TAMAS currently reaches 70,000 radio listeners three times per week, plus 2,400 recipients via daily email and on-demand SMS.