VOICE-BASED MARKETING FOR AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS: A CASE STUDY IN RURAL NORTHERN GHANA

Abstract

We present a study conducted in rural Northern Ghana about issues around the marketing of agricultural products and the need of mobile-based ICT solutions. The need for the spread of information and web access to communities in developing countries has given rise to the design and development of numerous ICT solutions, many of which have focused on the recent increase of mobile usage in developing countries. The contributions of this paper are: 1) Empirical results from a field survey run in Northern Ghana, which points to issues of a lack of buyers, low price offers and lack of transportation to sale points as the main issues in marketing of agricultural products and also points to the potential for mobile-based ICT solutions to mitigate the pertinent issues within the case study, but also in other areas. 2) The development of a voice-based prototype that allows medium to large-scale farmers in rural areas to place advertisements on the World Wide Web. The prototype was evaluated based on functionality and feasibility, including financial sustainability.