i-MAS

About the i-MAS

The i-MAS Android Application (Smart phone App) is a virtual market system. Users such as farmers can purchase and sell products to neighboring villages, if physical markets lack. Previsions on total regional harvest / input needs pose as Food Information System; governments can react on this information with relief programs.

i-MAS aims at improving market access by addressing the market information asymmetry facing smallholder farmers in the Tanzanian food system. The motivation of developing the iMAS APP was to take advantage of the advancement of Information Communication Technology (ICT) through internet, computing and mobile technology to improve the efficiency of African food systems. Lack of and asymmetrical information at the advantage of buyers and middlemen against the smallholder farmers is failing the food markets hence jeopardizing the welfare of both producers and consumers. The current version of i-MAS is rather localized covering 4 rural villages in two regions of Dodoma and Morogoro; but with a big potential of further development to cover the country and the East African region in the future.

The i-MAS APP was developed under the two agricultural research for development projects (AR4D) namely Trans-SEC (www.trans-sec.org) and Scale-N (www.scale-n.org). The goal of the two projects was to enhance food and nutrition security in rural Tanzania through a participatory people-centred action research. Through collaboration with other German and Tanzanian partners, the projects were implemented through the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) based in Germany and the Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA) based in Tanzania. We thank the Germany Government funding through the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) for the Trans-SEC project; and the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) for the Scale-N project.