Fresh Insights User Research Towards a Market InformationService for Bihari Vegetable Farmers

Matt ZieglerUniversity of Washingtonmattzigcswashingtonedu

Lokesh GargDigital Green Foundationlokeshdigitalgreenorg

Shailesh TiwaryDigital Green Foundationshaileshdigitalgreenorg

Aditya VashisthaUniversity of Washingtonadityavcswashingtonedu

Kurtis HeimerlUniversity of Washington

kheimerlcswashingtonedu

ABSTRACTAgricultural market information (MI) services provide smallholderfarmers with convenient access to price information and havedemonstrated potential to improve their incomes Some recentevaluations of MI systems however have shown disappointingresults and brought forth many complicating factors Cautious ofthe mixed literature we investigate the potential effectiveness andlikely limitations of an MI service for improving livelihoods ofsmallholder farmers in the context of Loop a shared transport-to-market-service for farmers We conducted interviews with 17farmers and 3 commission agents in Buxar Bihar (India) Consistentwith ldquoinformation scarcityrdquo and ldquoinformation asymmetryrdquo theorieswe report how many farmers in this area regularly use mobilephones to check prices for choosing markets and negotiating trans-actions Participants reported increases in the numbers of tradersand price stabilization since the arrival of mobile phones How-ever we found many other diverse factors that often outweigh theimportance of market prices and inhibit market access includingmarket capacity time unfamiliarity with new markets personalrelationships attitudes towards risk credit relationships and physi-cal danger Finally to probe which of these additional factors mightbe addressable using an MI service we present exploratory findingsfrom preliminary user-interface studies

CCS CONCEPTSbullHuman-centered computingrarr User studies Field studies

KEYWORDSAgriculture Markets Farmers India HCI4D ICTD

ACM Reference FormatMatt Ziegler Lokesh Garg Shailesh Tiwary Aditya Vashistha and KurtisHeimerl 2019 Fresh Insights User Research Towards a Market InformationService for Bihari Vegetable Farmers In Tenth International Conference onInformation and Communication Technologies and Development (ICTD rsquo19)

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal orclassroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributedfor profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citationon the first page Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACMmust be honored Abstracting with credit is permitted To copy otherwise or republishto post on servers or to redistribute to lists requires prior specific permission andor afee Request permissions from permissionsacmorgICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad Indiacopy 2019 Association for Computing MachineryACM ISBN 978-1-4503-6122-41901 $1500httpsdoiorg10114532870983287115

January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India ACM New York NY USA 11 pageshttpsdoiorg10114532870983287115

1 INTRODUCTIONFollowing the rapid worldwide adoption of mobile phones manyorganizations have begun offering ICT-enabled agricultural marketinformation (MI) services to smallholder farmers these servicesaim to provide convenient access to price information across dif-ferent markets Implementers believe that MI services can improvemarginalized and smallholder farmersrsquo livelihoods via the economicmechanisms of ldquoinformation asymmetryrdquo and ldquoinformation scarcityrdquo[9 14 30] Improved knowledge of prices in theory can help farm-ers select better markets and sell crops at higher prices via improvednegotiating power against traders Evaluations of MI services haveproduced mixed results however [6] While in some cases evalua-tions demonstrated increases in prices or incomes [11 16 18 25]others found no such significant effects [5 10 15 21]

The negative findings have called into question many of thepopular assumptions about how rural markets work and how farm-ers use price information Follow-up work has investigated otherimportant factors that influence marketing decisions and some-times take priority over prices such as unfamiliarity with othermarkets [21] commissions charged by agents [15] aversion to risk[9] personal relationships in markets [5 9 21] and simply havinga lack of alternative markets [7] Findings like these underscore thecomplexity and diversity of these marketplace ecosystems and theimportance of location-specific user research to better understandthe needs of the variety of stakeholders when building MI systems

Mindful of the limitations of MI services our research examinesa potential MI service extension of Loop [22] a shared transport-to-market service for smallholder farmers selling vegetables andperishable produce Loop collects produce each morning from par-ticipating farmers and transports it to markets where it is soldFarmers are paid for their sales on the same day Participatingfarmers benefit by saving time reducing transport costs throughpooling realizing higher prices through new market discovery andbargaining with larger quantities of produce

We chose Buxar Bihar (India) as a case study because farmersin Buxar sell vegetables in many small heterogeneous marketswhereas many other Bihari regions are dominated by a single mas-sive wholesale market To examine the potential effectiveness andidentify design considerations for an MI service we interviewedfarmers and commission agents about their marketing behaviorsand sought farmer input using interface prototyping exercises

ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India Ziegler Garg Tiwary Vashistha Heimerl

Suggesting potential benefits of an MI service in this locationour interviews show that the information scarcity and informationasymmetry models do in fact seem to hold true for our studiedpopulation Participants already frequently used mobile phonesto check market prices and they used the price information tochoose markets and negotiate with traders We received reportsof significant changes in the markets since mobile phones becamewidespread around 2015 substantial increases in the numbers ofvegetable traders increased activity in local markets and stabiliza-tion of market prices Although some participants directly attrib-uted these changes to mobile phones we cannot isolate the effectsfrom other factors such as improvements in road connectivity thatoccurred concurrently Contrasting with other studies in whichinterviewees reported no such uses of market price information[9 29] our research underscores the importance of localized userresearch for MI service design

Participants also reported other important factors which im-pacted their marketing behaviors which helps us to define limitsfor the benefits of price-information systems time and convenienceunfamiliarity with new markets personal relationships marketgluts and price crashes production volume attitudes towards riskcredit relationships and physical danger Some of these factorsinhibit market access and we conducted user studies with MI sys-tem prototypes to explore which of these barriers are addressablewe report a variety of user experience findings primarily focusedon helping farmers access new markets by providing informationabout price volatility market capacity business connections andtransport costs We conclude by discussing the potential uses andlimitations for an MI service in Buxar and offer design recom-mendations for improving market discovery and access to marketinformation

2 RELATEDWORKWe now situate our research in a body of related work analyzinginformation asymmetry and scarcity in agricultural markets inves-tigating prior evaluations of MI services and highlighting factorsthat affect the adoption and use of these services

The proliferation of mobile phones and the Internet gave riseto a new generation of MI services in the 2000rsquos largely backedby the private sector and trade associations [33] In addition toprices many of these new services provide production informationmdashsuch as weather forecasts and pest alertsmdashand include mechanismsfor online trading between buyers and sellers Some prominentexamples are FarmBee in India (formerly Reuters Market Light) [1]Esoko which operates in many African countries [13] and mFarmin Kenya [23]

MI services have received considerable attention in developmentcircles and hype in popular media due to their compelling storyand potential for poverty reduction [9] See for example the 2013Guardian article that enthusiastically reported how ldquosmallholderfarmers stymied by lack of information can see realtime market pricesfor their produce and now they want to sell to Tesco toordquo [32] Or-ganizations such as USAID [33] the World Bank [4] and the GSMAssociation [3] have released publications lauding the potential andencouraging the adoption of phone-based agricultural MI systems

21 Information Asymmetry and ScarcityThe prevailing economic theory of MI systems is that they benefitproducers by reducing market inefficiencies caused by informationasymmetries and scarcities

The information asymmetry theory describes the difference ininformation assets between traders and producers Tradersmdashhavingbetter knowledge of market pricesmdashtake advantage of producersrsquoignorance to buy below market price thereby taking a large cutof producersrsquo profits [14 24] MI services can increase producersrsquobargaining power by providing them with price information andthe resulting opportunity to recover some of the tradersrsquo margins

Information scarcity presents another type of market inefficiencymaldistribution of goods between disconnected markets This the-ory posits that a lack of information about market supply leadsto price crashes and wastage via oversupply and price spikes andscarcity via undersupply The availability of price information the-oretically leads to more efficient distribution of goods by lettingproducers and traders sell in markets with higher prices and in turnredistributes goods to markets where they are more scarce [30 31]In what is now a canonical ICT4D study Robet Jensen [19] mea-sured a stabilization of prices across fish markets upon the arrivalof mobile phones at a site in Kerala and showed increased fisherprofits due to a reduction in wastage Jensen reported that somefishing crews called agents at multiple markets and decided whereto land based on prices also benefiting others via resulting pricestabilization

22 Evaluations of MI ServicesRecent evaluations of phone-based MI services have producedmixed results [6] some demonstrated significant changes in partic-ipants incomes prices or marketing behaviors while others foundno such effects In evaluations of Pallinet in Bangladesh [18] andTradeNet in Sri Lanka [21] farmers reported receiving higher pricesfrom the services but both studies reported only on farmersrsquo per-ceptions In studies that measured sale prices findings were moremixed a randomized controlled trial of an SMS-based price servicein Peru reported price increases for some perishable crops [25]but a similarly structured study in Colombia reported no such ef-fect [10] One trial of Esoko saw a substantial increase in prices foryams but no other crops [16] while a different trial of the same ser-vice saw such increases for maize and ground nuts [11] Similarlyan evaluation of Reuters Market Light (now FarmBee) identified nosignificant increase in prices [15]

Although some evaluations found no significant changes in mar-keting behaviors [5 18 21] others found effects of increased nego-tiating power against traders [11 16 25] The 2012 Reuters MarketLight evaluation reported that the group given an RML subscrip-tion had increased tendency to sell at markets instead of farm-gatetraders [15]

Several researchers have examined how usability and literacybarriers affect the adoption and use of MI services For exampleWyche and Steinfield [36] examined an SMS-based MI service andreported severe usability problems including difficulty sendingand reading text messages sensitivity to the cost of sending SMSmessages language barriers unreliable connectivity difficulty re-membering the codes required for requesting prices and farmersrsquo

User Research Towards a Market Information Service ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India

perceptions of mobile phones as ldquosocial itemsrdquo rather than infor-mation delivery platforms In the 2012 RML trial [15] a full 41 ofthe 422 households who were offered an RML subscription for freenever used it and the authors cited reasons for this outcome thatincluded illiteracy devicesrsquo inability to display the Marathi scriptand failure to send the sequence of SMS messages to activate theservice In Islam and Groumlnlundrsquos evaluation of the AMIS servicein Bangladesh[18] 80 of 100 of users reported difficulty using theRoman script to access the SMS user interface

23 Factors Affecting Use of Price InformationThese negative evaluations have uncovered a wide range of compli-cating factors that limit producersrsquo benefits from price informationFor example the 2010 AMIS study reported that many farmerswere reluctant to explore new markets because of unfamiliaritywith their business mechanisms [18] In the 2011 Tradenet studymany users were reluctant to change traders because they reliedon them for information and credit [21] The authors of the 2013Esoko evaluation hypothesized that farmers got increased pricesfor yams but not other crops because bargaining played a biggerrole for yam marketing than for other crops [16]

To characterize the limits of market information systems severalyears after Jensenrsquos previously mentioned landmark study [19]Srinivasan and Burrell [29] conducted ethnographic interviews atJensenrsquos original Kerala site and detailed the mechanisms by whichfishers used price information They found that only large boatstended to choose a landing site based on prices the value of theirlarge catches being more sensitive to price fluctuations smallercrews most often just sold at the nearest market prioritizing restafter a long day of work At a second nearby site they found onlysmall fishing boats and dangerous topography that constrictedlanding sites showing that the necessary conditions for price infor-mation to lead to livelihood improvements probably did not holdtrue there From ethnographic studies at sites in China and UgandaBurrell and Oreglia [9] reported that while their informants hadmany other uses of mobile phones for farming and fishing theyldquoconsistently disclaimed any practice of acquiring market price infor-mation for the purpose of comparison between markets (by phone orother means)rdquo for a variety of reasons such as already knowingprices from extension agents or other fishers giving importance topreserving relationships with traders and aversion to taking risks

These results emphasize the need to conduct more location-specific research identify additional local factors that influencefarmersrsquo marketing decisions and evaluate the role ICTs can andcannot play in addressing them In this work we identify processesworkflows and factors that influence market choices of farmers inthe Buxar district We found that farmers commonly used mobilephones to check prices select markets and negotiate deals withtraders

Among ICTs for agriculture marketing there is a paucity ofresearch that addresses farmersrsquo unfamiliarity with markets or dis-parities in marketing skillsWe are not aware of anyMI services thatprovide information to help familiarize users with local marketssuch as market sizes price volatility seasonal variations operatingtimes or vegetable processing advice key foci of our effort

3 BACKGROUNDTo contextualize this work we now provide details about the sharedtransport-to-market service Loop identify key stakeholders in Bi-hari vegetable markets and describe the structures of these markets

According to the 2011 Indian census Bihar has lowest literacyrate (6180) and highest population density (1102km2) of anyIndian state (excluding union territories) [27] The 2015-16 NationalFamily Health Survey in Bihar found that 89 of rural householdshad mobile phones only 59 of households had electricity and 46of households owned agricultural land [26]

31 LoopLoop is an integrated program working to improve smallholderfarmersrsquo livelihoods via improved connections to markets [22] Itoffers a daily door-to-door vegetable pickup service for participatingfarmers Vegetables are sold in the market farmers are paid thefull price on the same day and SMS receipts are sent to them fortransparency Participating farmers benefit by saving time sharingtransport costs gaining access to newmarkets and negotiatingwithbulk quantities Farmers never have any obligation to sell throughLoop they can choose each day whether to participate or sell theirgoods through other channels Farmers always have the option toaccompany the vegetables to market but they usually choose notto Because Loop records every transaction the system already hasaccurate daily price data for many markets making it a suitablefoundation for a market-information system As of November 2018Loop is operating in 4 Indian states and 9 Bangladeshi districts andhas conducted over $14M USD in transactions for 80000 metrictons of vegetables from 26000 farmers

In the version of Loop operating in the Buxar district farmerswho want to send produce with Loop contact the village ldquoaggrega-torrdquo each night The aggregator arranges transportation based uponthe quantity of vegetables The following morning the aggregatorcollects the vegetables accompanies them to market and conductstransactions with traders or commission agents Farmers and aggre-gators jointly decide which market to visit every day Loop providessmartphones to aggregators with which they enter transaction dataand contact traders commission agents and transporters We notethat Loop operates under several different business models andthat the role of aggregators differs in other locations

32 Key Marketplace ActorsBihari vegetable markets have diverse structures and can feature avariety of actors

In-market traders In manymarkets retail traders buy produceduring the morning rush that they then sell to consumers through-out the day Some markets have local traders who charge farmersa small fee for using their scales and help them attract traders bydrawing large volumes together During high-production seasonstraders from distant locations visit many markets en route fromone city to another and buy and sell produce based on prices oftenspecializing in a few types of vegetables

Commission agents These agents known locally in Hindi asGaddidars do not technically buy vegetables rather they leveragetheir business networks to sell vegetables on behalf of farmerscharging a fixed-rate commission per kilogram of sold vegetables

ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India Ziegler Garg Tiwary Vashistha Heimerl

Figure 1 A commission agentrsquos stall with several tons ofcauliflower for sale in Samastipur market

Key responsibilities of commission agents are negotiating goodprices for farmers attracting traders by aggregating big quantitiesfrom many farmers (see Figure 1) and maintaining good relation-ships with all parties Many farmers have long-lasting relationshipswith these agents selling most of their produce through only oneagent Commission agents commonly provide other services tofarmers such as supplying credit or paying farmers immediately incash when payments from traders are delayed While commissionagents are not present in every market they dominate some

Farm-gate traders Some traders buy directly from farmersrsquofields skipping local marketplaces altogether They often supplylabor to farmers for harvesting processing and packing vegeta-bles Some areas have farm-gate traders who buy produce fromfarmers and sell in local markets often paying farmers slightly lessthan market rates but bearing the transport costs During high-production seasons some areas have long-distance traders whobuy at farm-gate to circumvent market fees but demand higherquality produce

Aggregators Aggregators are farmers who conduct transac-tions for Loop In the Buxar districtrsquos version of Loop they collectproduce from farmers transport it to markets conduct transactionsand send payments to the farmers

33 Vegetable Markets in BiharBiharrsquos vegetable markets vary widely in size and have heteroge-neous structures Most farmers sell at wholesale markets dealingin bulk to traders who shuttle the vegetables to other wholesalemarkets or to separate consumer-facing retail markets Some mar-kets are mixed wholesale and retail but many are distinctly one orthe other Prior to 2006 Bihar legally required many crops to besold through public auction at state-owned APMC markets beforereaching consumers Bihar abolished its APMCmarkets in 2006 andthe planned replacement system was never implemented leadingto a proliferation of private markets (which were illegal under theprevious law but nevertheless common) [20]

The Buxar district of Bihar where we conducted our interviewsis characterized by a smattering of small vegetable markets withno single large market that dominates the landscape All marketsare privately owned and the proprietors collect fees from traderscommission agents and farmers The vegetable markets teem with

Figure 2 Farmers stand by their vegetables inDharharamar-ket waiting to be approached by a trader

small buyers and sellers and we encountered no large corporateprocurement channels To our knowledge Bihar has no governmentservice for checking market prices None of the farms or marketswe visited had refrigeration facilities

While some markets have traders and commission agents whorent stalls in other markets farmers set vegetables on the groundand wait for traders to approach them (Figure 2) During busyhours traders move through the markets inspecting qualities andnegotiating prices There is no standardized quality grading systemLaborers hired by traders and commission agents load and unloadvehicles often handling hundreds of sacks every day each typicallyweighing about 60 kilograms (kg)

Prices Prices float up and down based on supply and demandare very difficult to predict and occasionally spike or crash withinminutes Rates are negotiated as a price-per-kg Most vegetablecrops have only a short window of 2ndash4 days when they can beharvested andmust be sold immediately to prevent spoilage leavingfarmers particularly vulnerable to short-term price shocks

Transportation For very small quantities farmers often carryvegetables to market on foot bicycle or motorbike When volumesare low some farmers farmers jointly hire vehicles and usually allaccompany the vehicle to market Farmers commonly hire trans-portation from owners and drivers of small- and medium-sizedvehicles (with capacity of 700ndash2500 kg) who commonly live aroundthe villages During high seasons many farmers have enough veg-etables to hire their own vehicles

Cuts for spoilage After weighing the vegetables traders andcommission agents generally cut the measurements to accountfor spoilage (eg a trader might cut 5 kg from a 70 kg bag andpay only for 65 kg) Vegetables that spoil faster receive a higherspoilage cut The amount cut also varies by market commissionagent and trader and such variations can impact farmersrsquo earningsignificantly

Gender Few women farmers buy or sell produce in the whole-sale markets in Buxar negotitations between agents traders andfarmers are largely handled by men Some regions in Bihar havemore women participating in markets than others several farmerstold us that poorer families are more likely to have women workingin the markets

User Research Towards a Market Information Service ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India

4 FARMER INTERVIEWSTo better understand the potential uses and limitations of an MIservice we interviewed farmers and commission agents about theirmarketing behaviors We chose Buxar as a case study because farm-ers in this area sell vegetables in several different small marketswhereas many other Bihari regions are dominated by a single enor-mous market

41 MethodsWe conducted semi-structured interviews with 11 farmers (denotedF1-F11) 6 Loop aggregators (who are also farmers denoted A1-A6) and 3 commission agents (denoted G1-G3) To capture diverseresponses we sampled farmers and aggregators from six differentvillages in the Buxar district of Bihar Five farmers were selectedrandomly from the Loop user database [F5 F6 F7 F8 F9] and theothers were recruited using convenience sampling we interviewedfarmers who were available when we arrived in their villages

All interviews were conducted in Hindi which was spoken andunderstood well by all interview subjects The interview team con-sisted of two people a regional manager for Loop who had priorworking relationships with the aggregators and spoke fluent Hindiand a research intern for Loop who understood basic Hindi Toavoid pressures and biases from ldquopublic performance interviewsrdquowe tried to hold one-on-one interviews in private settings but manysessions nevertheless drew groups of observers We audio-recordedall interviews except for those with commission agents who all de-clined to consent to recording likely from fear of damaging businessrelationships We took detailed notes for all interviews

We developed semi-structured interview questions in advanceinformed by prior informal conversations with farmers duringLooprsquos long-term field efforts Our interviews investigated a rangeof topics such as phone usage price checking tactics marketchanges over time relationships with different market actors ac-cess to credit and Loop service usage In most interviews thoughwe covered only subsets of the questions due to time constraintsAt the time of our interviews Loop had operated in Buxar for aboutfive months We asked these questions about marketing behaviorsbefore and after beginning Loop use and in the interest of general-izability this paper reports mostly on behaviors before Loop

We transcribed audio recordings and translated interview tran-scripts and field notes to English We reviewed and analyzed dataimmediately after each interview and the insights obtained fromour data analysis added more questions to each subsequent inter-view We subjected transcribed audio recordings and field notes tothematic analysis as outlined by Braun and Clarke [8] A subset ofauthors participated in the coding process they engaged in regulardiscussions and iterated on the codes until consensus was reachedWe now outline key themes that emerged from our analysis ofinterviews with farmers aggregators and commission agents

All of our participants weremen Although Loop has some femalefarmers most often men handle vegetable marketing in this regionMoreover the fact that all interviewers were male made it difficultto recruit female farmers in part due to cultural taboos that restrictwomen from conversing with unfamiliar men

Farmers were aged 20 to 61 (median age 365) and had educationlevels spanning from seven years of formal education to a masterrsquos

degree in Sanskrit (median nine years of education) Reported farmsizes ranged from 04 to 3 acres Most farmers owned land threereported having some land on lease All farmers grew vegetableson their land and some grew wheat seasonally [F1 F7] Whilesome farmers reported agriculture as their only source of income[F7 F9 F10] others also relied on earnings from dairy cattle [F5]remittances from sons working in Dubai [F5] and wages receivedfrom electrical work [F8] We neglected to collect demographicinformation from aggregators and commission agents

Four farmers had smartphones [F3 F4 F6 F8] five had featurephones [F2 F5 F7 F10 F11] and two had no phones but had regis-tered for Loop using their fathersrsquo numbers [F1 F9] All aggrega-tors were provided smartphones by Loop and all three commissionagents had smartphones Among the smartphone users some usedthe Internet and had accounts on Facebook and WhatsApp

42 Acquisition and Use of Price InformationMany participants reported that they andmany farmers in the Buxardistrict made calls over mobile phones to access price informationand used it to choose markets and negotiate better prices withtraders We also received reports of vegetable traders using mobilephones to buy and sell between markets Participants consistentlyreported that they never used SMS WhatsApp or Facebook forvegetable marketing We are not aware of any government helplineservice for vegetable prices in Bihar and participants consistentlydenied having heard of one [F5 A3 G1 G2 F8 F10]

Price information sources Most participants reported usingmobile phones to access prices by sending or receiving voice calls[F1 F4 F6 F8 F10 F11 A2 A4 A5 G1 G2 G3] An aggregator(A2) stated ldquoI call and check prices frequently Every day differentmarkets different timesrdquo While some participants checked pricesdaily [F11 A2 A4] others checked only on occasion [F2 F8]

Some farmers reported that they usually didnrsquot check pricesbefore going to market and had different reasons not to find itworthwhile [F2 F7 F8 F9 A3] For example F7 did not check pricesbefore going to his local market since he knew that it usually hadgood rates Similarly F3 did not check prices because he trustedthe local traders ldquoThey never quote too littlerdquo

Price sharing among farmers appeared to be widespread Manyinterviewees reported getting prices from others in their villagefrequently from in-person conversations [F1 F5 F6 F8 F10 F11 A1A2 A3 A4] For local markets at least this finding supports Burrelland Oregliarsquos claim that price information is often not scarce [9]

Many farmers reportedmaking phone calls to commission agentsto check prices [F2 F4 F6 F10 F11 A2 A4] All participatingcommission agents also reported getting regular calls from farmersSince commission agents act only as intermediaries and do notactually buy vegetables farmers reported calling them only tocheck market rates but not to pre-arrange deals A commissionagent G3 stated that ldquo20ndash25 farmers call me every dayrdquo during bothhigh and low production seasons and that farmers call to checkprices but never to discuss quantities Some farmers reported freelycalling several commission agents to compare prices [F4 F6 F11A2 A4] however F2 reported that many farmers in his villagewere constrained by their relationships with commission agentsand were obligated to bring produce if they called to check rates

ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India Ziegler Garg Tiwary Vashistha Heimerl

Farmers having stable relationships with commission agents told usthat the agents nearly always quoted accurate prices [F1 A2] Somefarmers reported that unfamiliar commission agents sometimesmislead farmers by quoting prices higher than the real prevailingprice to draw farmers to their market [F1 F2 F8 F10]

Some farmers reported calling both in-market and farm-gatetraders to check prices and make verbal deals to sell over the phoneagreeing on a quantity and a price [F8 F10 A5] Sometimes as in thecase of F8 traders also called farmers when they need vegetablesthey offer a price and tell farmers the quantity to bring

Market choices A few participants reported checking pricesat several markets before deciding where to take their vegetables[F10 F11 A2 A5] For example A5 shared that he sold his produceto retail traders at three local markets and called each market tocheck prices and make a verbal agreement about rates before goingSimilarly F10 reported calling a commission agent to check pricesat a distant large market to decide whether to go and then checkingprices with other agents after he arrived at the market

Negotiation Many farmers reported using price informationin negotiations comparing tradersrsquo rates against other traders andagainst market prices [F2 F6 F7 F8 F10 F11 A3 A4 A5] Forexample F7 stated ldquoWe negotiate with farm-gate traders based on theprevious dayrsquos market rates We offer 2 rupees above yesterdayrsquos rateand then the traders negotiate it down to 1 rupee above yesterdayrsquosraterdquo In another example F8 said that he called traders in the largefar-off Ara market to gain negotiating power against local traderssince rates were always |2ndash8 higher there

Arbitrage Commission agents reported that traders regularlyused mobile phones for arbitrage leveraging price information tobuy produce in one market and sell it in another For example G3shared that 5ndash6 outside traders came to his market daily duringpeak season and called in themornings to check prices Commissionagent G1 also reported calling other markets daily to check pricesand arrange deals with traders

43 Changes in Markets After Mobile PhonesSeveral participants reported significant changes in vegetable mar-kets since 2015 around the same time when mobile phones re-portedly became widespread in this area [G3 F11] These changesincluded big increases in the numbers of traders shifts in mar-ket activity and stabilization of prices Some participants directlyattributed the changes to mobile phones [F11 A2 G3] For exam-ple F11 stated ldquoEarlier before mobile phones were here not manytraders came But now that they know the rates they come here tobuy vegetablesrdquo Some participants noted that improvements in roadconnectivity around the same time also likely played an importantrole [F4 F11 A4] as well as shifts in trader patterns due a bridgebecoming impassable [F4 A4]

Many participants reported a large increase in the number oftraders since about 2015 [F4 F7 F11 A2 G3] For example A2 notedthat only 2ndash4 farm-gate traders used to come to his village dailyand the number had increased to about 15ndash20 at present Becauseof increased trader activity in local markets some farmers shiftedfrom selling in distant markets to local ones [F4 F7 A4] FarmerF7 had gone to the large distant Ara market until 3ndash4 years agosaying ldquoThe traders from Ara market are coming here now so there

is no point in going to Ara marketrdquo Conversely some other farmerswho had previously used only local markets began selling at distantmarkets because of new contacts with agents [F11]

We heard some reports of price stabilization since 2015 someparticipants reported fewer supply gluts and price crashes [A2G3] According to G3 ldquoBefore having mobile phones traders hadbetter margins because not many people had price information Noweverybody knows the pricesrdquo

Farmers told us about a variety of marketing heuristics they usedfor price discovery before the availability of mobile phones A2told us that he watched where other farmers sent vegetable trucksfrom his village and then sent his vegetables in other directions toavoid oversupply F4 stated that he went to far-off markets at thebeginning of a harvest of a particular crop because demand washigh then and supply low A2 (and several others) explained thatwhen the winds arose from the east and brought humidity for 2ndash3days production and quality increased traders knew this too sothese winds also brought the distance-traders to local markets

44 Non-Price Factors Impacting MarketingDecisions

Though price information was a key factor that influenced farmersrsquomarketing decisions participants also reported many other factorssuch as market capacity production volume time convenienceunfamiliarity with markets personal relationships connectionsrisk credit relationships and physical danger We now report onsome of these factors

Supply gluts and market capacity Participants reported thatmarkets occasionally became overwhelmed by large amounts ofproduce In such scenarios price crashes were common and farmerscould not sell any vegetables leading to severe losses Many farmersmentioned market capacity as an overriding concern the mostimportant factor for their profitability was their ability to sell theirentire stock of vegetables Some farmers expressed reluctance totry new markets due to fears of price crashes Since such crasheswere frequent in some small local markets during high productionseasons many farmers viewed either selling produce to farm-gatetraders or going to bigger far-away markets as safer options [F2F10 A4] A2 shared ldquoIf the market here has more harvest then wego to distant markets I have learned a lot by selling vegetables overthe years Letrsquos say I have 2 quintal [200kg] of tomatoes and if I getto know someone else has 5 quintal then I know that the rate fortomatoes is going to drop Itrsquos a competition cyclerdquo The capacity of amarket depends roughly on the number of traders In export-drivenmarkets outside traders come seasonally so capacity varies overthe year [F7 F8 A2]

Production volume and seasonalityWe observed that farm-ersrsquo marketing behaviors varied with their production volumeswhich depended on their farm sizes and seasonal changes Whenproduction was high volume often exceeded the capacity of localmarkets so farmers made the investment to try more distant mar-kets with higher capacities [A4 F8 F9] When volume was verylow some farmers did not find it worthwhile to put effort into mar-keting so they opted for convenience they stuck to local marketssold to local traders or simply sent their produce to market alongwith another farmer [F3 F5 A3 F6] F8 told us ldquoI never make any

User Research Towards a Market Information Service ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India

decision on prices When the volume is low I go to Dumri marketwhen itrsquos high I go to Nayabhojpur marketrdquo F5 a farmer with smallvolume regularly took a two-hour train to Patna the capital city tosell his vegetables in a retail market because it was too difficult tosell small quantities in wholesale ones Vehicle capacity presentedanother constraint during peak season insufficient vehicles wereavailable for hire so vegetables went to waste [F10]

Time and convenienceMarket trips could be immensely time-consuming for farmers and one of the biggest barriers to usingalternative markets was simply that it took too long During highproduction seasons farmers commonly went to market every 1ndash3 days [F2 F6 F8] Traveling to distant markets was reported tobe a major time investment some farmers reported making tripswith 2ndash4 hours of transport time each way [F2 F5] and sometimestraveling the whole night [F4 A2]

Once at the market they often waited for traders to buy theirproduce which on good days took 30 to 60 minutes [F1 F6] How-ever during high production season the sales often took muchlonger Farmers reported spending 3ndash5 hours to sell their produce[F6 F8] F1 said ldquoWhen there is a lot of harvest sometimes it takesthe whole day to sellrdquo

Some farmers reported selling to farm-gate traders because ofconvenience Farm-gate traders often supplied labor to handle thecutting packing and other processing this saved the time andhassle of going to the market [F3 F5 F10] F3 explained ldquoNow thatthese people do it I just give it to them I could not manage witheverything I am growing oldrdquo Many farmers also cited convenienceand time savings as reasons for using Loop [F3 F5 F7 F8 F9]

Unfamiliarity with newmarkets Farmers reported that lackof familiarity with new markets was a significant barrier againsttrying them Diversity in market structures and operations madeselling in a new market a daunting task and missteps could lead tobig losses For example A6 shared why some farmers were hesitantto try new markets ldquoIf farmers have to go to a distant market on ahot day and the stock is unprepared they might reach there late Ifthey reach late the market will be down by then Then who will taketheir stock He [the agent] will say lsquoyou have come so latersquo rdquo

Several farmers stressed the importance of gathering informationabout a new market before bringing vegetables there to sell such aswhich commission agents were good howmuch volume the marketcould handle who the major traders were whether vegetables camefrom outside which vegetables sold well and the peak operatingtimes throughout the year [F1 F4 A2 A4 A6] When asked whatadvice he would offer to other farmers A2 replied ldquoThe farmersneed to go to the markets and study the customers prices and qualityof harvest Without studying and experiencing it one cannot learnrdquoHe later told us ldquoThey should have a trusting relationship with thecommission agents and should know about the marketrsquos operationssuch as rates and processes all these things so they can handle themarketrsquos intricacies and fetch good prices Farmers should be informedabout the markets well before going If farmers are not well-informedand only make decisions on the basis of prices it will not be goodbecause every market has different operationsrdquo

In-market connections Participants told us that having con-nections in a market made selling produce much easier by providinginformation and help [F1 F4 A2 A4 A6] We heard several storiesof farmers trying new markets for the first time because they had

formed a connection with a commission agent [F1 F2 F8 F11] F11told us that he had never sold at any distant markets before gettinga mobile phone and he recently started going to the distant Bhastiand Bharadpur markets after getting phone numbers of commissionagents there from a local trader Similarly F2 tried going to thefar-off Sikanderpur market after meeting a Sikanderpur commissionagent who had come to his village Apart from just informationconnections were valuable for other support During our interviewof F1 another farmer interjected ldquoWhen we go to Buxar market weknow the commission agents If they are taking money then we canfight for our money because we know them With a different marketwe donrsquot know the commission agents we donrsquot have any power toexercise there So we donrsquot prefer those marketsrdquo

Relationships with commission agents Some farmers re-ported long-lasting relationships with commission agents onlyselling with 1 or 2 consistently [F1 F2] In these relationships com-mission agents often expected loyalty since collecting big volumesfrom many farmers was important for attracting traders F4 toldus that a farmer changing agents created a bad reputation in thatmarket and agents were less likely to extend credit or value thatfarmersrsquo business ldquoAll goes wrong if you keep switching agentsrdquo

Many interview subjects stressed the importance of trust be-tween farmers and commission agents [F1 F2 F4 A2 G1 G2 G3]because they are mutually dependent on each other to maintaintheir reputations exchange accurate information and uphold dealsCommission agents told us about their efforts to build relationshipswith farmers such as calling to ask about their families [G3] andgiving farmers gifts like tea Sprite and flashlights [G2]

Sometimes despite these relationships with commission agentsfarmers sold to other traders under the table For example F1 re-ported that sometimes traders would wait on the road outside themarket and approach farmers before they entered to avoid payingthe agentsrsquo commissions

Other farmers reported no such commitments to commissionagents and sold freely via different traders and agents based on priceonly [F7 F8 F9 A5] We heard many responses like ldquoWhicheveragent is giving good prices we prefer to go with themrsquo [F9] A5 toldus assertively ldquoWe want the price we donrsquot want a relationshiprdquo

Risk We encountered different attitudes towards risk-takingduring our interviews We speculate that wealthier farmers havebetter access to markets because they are more comfortable takingrisks with a financial safety cushion to fall on when things do notwork out Poor farmers are probably more constrained more oftenchoosing what they perceive as the safest option

Some farmers discussed price crashes frankly seeming to acceptthem as a part of doing business [F4 F5 F6 F8 A2] For exampleF5 stated ldquoYeah I have had to return home with the stock If today Iget a bad rate I might get a good rate tomorrowrdquo

Farmers F1 and F2 on the other hand appeared much morehesitant to take risks When asked why they seldom tried marketsother than Buxar they expressed concerns about spending toomuchto go to those markets without any guarantee that they would getgood rates and they recounted stories about visiting new marketsin the past and finding worse prices

The infrastructure of vegetable marketing in Bihar distributesrisk between all the different actors Commission agents and tradersabsorb some of the farmersrsquo risk A main benefit of selling through

ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India Ziegler Garg Tiwary Vashistha Heimerl

commission agents is that they usually pay farmers cash immedi-ately when the produce is sold to a trader Payments from tradersare sometimes delayed [F4 F9] since traders send cash throughintermediaries or pay only after selling the crops at another marketwhich usually takes 1ndash2 days but can take much longer when pricescrash [G1 G3] Commission agents in this way insulate farmersfrom price crash risks Local farm-gate traders often pay less thanmarket rates but in return they bare the transportation cost andthe risk of price fluctuations F3 told us ldquoI am too old to take care ofthe market things traders are a luxury because they take the riskrdquo

Credit After taking loans from commission agents at plantingtime some farmers were obligated to sell their vegetables throughthose agents [F1 F4 G2] Commission agent G2 explained thatwhen selling vegetables for farmers who have credit from him hewithheld |1ndash2 per kg of the payment for 2ndash3 days and then paid therest to the farmer only when he returned to sell more vegetables F4told us that commission agents sometimes offered him credit buthe refused so that he was not obligated to sell his produce throughthem All three commission agents who we interviewed insistedthat they did not charge interest on loans to farmers instead theyused the loans as a way to create business F1 however told us thathe payed |20 per |100 per month in interest to his agent

From our interviews the prevalence of these credit relationshipsbetween farmers and commission agents was unclear Only oneparticipant (F1) reported taking credit from agents However com-mission agent G2 told us that he gave credit to about 20 of every 100farmers he dealt with usually in amounts of |10000ndash|20000 F2told us that his commission agent gave him |500ndash|2000 advancesfor personal expenses but not larger loans Participants reportedhaving access to various other sources of credit such as local mon-eylenders [F6 F8] relatives and neighbors [F7 F10] None of thefarmers reported getting credit from vegetable traders

Danger and Bribes The peak activity of most big markets is inthe early morning and when the market is far away farmers haveto travel at night to reach in time Many farmers in our study areaexpressed reluctance to travel at night because of danger Somefarmers worried about getting robbed [F6] F2 and F10 stoppedgoing to distant markets because of police bribes F10 shared ldquoTherewas a problem with the police that resulted in a hassle to go there Onthe way there are two police vans by the road in the night checkpointand they ask for |200ndash500 There are about 10ndash15 such checkpointsYou end up giving about |3000 for the vehicle and about |1500 tothe police so any difference in market prices is a loss to usrdquo

45 Summary of InterviewsParticipants reported diverse marketing strategies some farmersregularly called connections to sell vegetables at many differentmarkets while others were bound to a specific commission agentin their local market or opted for the convenience of local tradersWe recorded reports of many but not all farmers using price in-formation to choose markets and negotiate with traders as well astraders using mobile phones for arbitrage between markets

We collected anecdotal reports of changes in markets aroundthe same time that mobile phones became widespread in the areaincluding increased numbers of traders shifts in market activity

and stabilization of prices Other factors influencing farmersrsquo mar-keting decisions included market capacity production volume timeunfamiliarity personal relationships risk credit and danger

5 MARKET INFO APP PAPER PROTOTYPESTo explore which market-access factors could be addressable withanMI service we next conducted a cognitive walkthrough and light-weight usability study of a series of low-fidelity system prototypesbuilt off of Loop and using Loop aggregators

As seen in our interviews and demonstrated by other Loop de-ployments Loop farmers often accessed previously-impracticalmarkets due to time savings and the pooling of transport costs Wethus focused on the use case of farmers considering new unfamiliarmarkets and the subset of market-access barriers that we believedto be most addressable via an information service including marketcontacts price volatility market capacity and transportation

51 MethodsWe designed four iterations of paper prototypes and tested theprototypes with nine Loop aggregators Sessions were conductedin the Buxar and Samastipur districts of Bihar Most participantswere selected using a convenience sampling methodology for be-ing present while conducting other Loop-related business a fewwere selected for being engaged Loop users Participants typicallyhad more education than other farmers all were literate and hadexperience using smartphones Many participants already had ex-perience with RampD processes having previously participated inexperimental Loop pilots

For testing we asked participants to imagine a hypothetical situa-tion in which they had to choose between unfamiliar markets to selltheir vegetables and navigate the paper prototypes withmocked-updata to find information and make a decision We carefully observedparticipants while they interacted with the prototypes and askedthem to speak their thought processes aloud Using the prototypesas a conversation piece we held open-ended conversations withthe participants about how to improve the designs and what otherfeatures they would like

Since prior work has noted high levels of response bias whenevaluating prototypes in HCI4D contexts [2 12 28] we used theldquosocial proofrdquo method to prime participants finding it surprisinglyeffective for soliciting critical feedback [34] We told participants atthe onset of the evaluation sessions that previous participants hadfound the screens confusing did not understand what the buttonsdid and did not find the features useful

52 FindingsHere we present our results that suggest avenues for addressingsome of the market-access barriers uncovered in our user research

Price stability andmarket capacity To help users know howstable or volatile prices are at a particular market we experimentedwith interfaces for showing historic prices We asked four aggrega-tors how many days of past prices they wanted to see and everyparticipant consistently answered that they wanted to see pricesonly for the last 2ndash4 daysParticipants reported that showing moredates would be unnecessary they could not predict future pricesfrom past prices and assessing price stability was the only use

User Research Towards a Market Information Service ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India

(a) Graph confusing (b) Dots unhelpful (c) Preferred

Figure 3 Presentations of past market prices to show mar-ket volatility All users preferred 3c (Figures are translatedfrom Hindi to English for this paper)

Graphs and visualizations are frequently used to show historicprices in many other contexts but we found them not to be useful inthis application Bar graphs (Figure 3a) confused participants othervisualizations (3b) were easier to understand but participants stillreported finding them unhelpful and unnecessarily complicated Allparticipants preferred the simplicity of seeing the prices in tabularform with no visualization (3c)

To communicate market capacity we showed screens labelingmarkets as lsquobig marketrsquo lsquomedium marketrsquo and lsquosmall marketrsquo show-ing these labels for multiple markets together so users could usefamiliar markets as references for unfamiliar ones (Figure 4a) Mostusers responded positively to this feature but we received feedbackthat some market sizes varied by season and that we should notewhich markets had outside traders who came seasonally

Transport costs During the usability tests with hypotheticalscenarios we asked users to find the market with the best payoffafter factoring in transportation costs We watched several usersstruggle to calculate payoff estimations having to keep track ofmany different numbers We considered awkward payoff-calculatorinterfaces that required significant data entry from users but wefound it more effective to simply show the cost of sending a pickuptruck to each market side-by-side with the prices (Figure 4a) Sinceonly one or two crops usually dominate a dayrsquos market trip thismock gave users the necessary information conveniently in onescreen Farmers commonly hire many different types of vehicleswith different costs but we opted to show only the cost of a pickuptruck on this screen because for distant markets it is rarely cost-effective to send any vehicle smaller than a pickup

Contacts Since many farmers cited the lack of contacts as abarrier to exploring newmarkets we showed a simple contacts pagefor commission agents at each market (see Figure 4b) We askedparticipants how they would choose which agent to contact anddiscussed options such as a rating system for agents or showingbiographical information such as vegetable specialties Several toldus that when scoping out a new market they looked for agentswith the most customers since that meant they were likely to begood agents Some participants stated that they would simply preferLoop to recommend a commission agent to them and that theywould trust the recommendation In addition to contact details ofcommission agents several participants told us that they wouldlike contacts of Loop farmers who frequented other markets sothey could learn from each other

We learned through this exercise that some factorsmdashincludingprice volatility transportation and payoff calculation and agent

(a) Mock prices screen forone crop showing marketsizes and transport costs

(b) Mock screen showingcommission agents for amarket

Figure 4 Example screen mocks shown to participants

contactsmdashare addressable through a mobile app or similar serviceHowever other important information for vegetable marketing iscomplex and difficult to capture in the structures of an MI serviceeg specific quality and processing information for each crop ateach market or the fact that one particular market shifts to nighttime for several months during the winter These factors may bebetter addressable through other media

6 DISCUSSIONWe set out to understand the potential benefits and limits of a mar-ket information service in Buxar Bihar Results from our interviewsand prototype exercises show how the arrival of mobile phoneshas brought changes to Buxarrsquos vegetable markets and examinethe many factors that influence farmersrsquo marketing behaviors Weend with a discussion of design considerations for MI services andother strategies to address market-access barriers

61 Information Asymmetry and ScarcityConsistent with the theories of information asymmetry and infor-mation scarcity we found evidence in the Buxar district showingthat conditions seemed favorable for improved market efficiencydue to better availability of price information Farmers frequentlyused their mobile phones to get price information from differentmarkets some using the prices to choose a market and negotiatewith traders After the widespread adoption of mobile phones in thearea farmers reported market changes consistent with the informa-tion scarcity theory with more traders moving vegetables betweenmarkets and fewer price crashes We also heard reports of farmersusing price information to negotiate higher prices from traders con-sistent with the information asymmetry theory Especially whencompared to other research that did not find such conditions inother locations [9 29] our work reinforces the importance of local-ization in the studies of MI services

62 Usefulness of an MI ServiceMany farmers used phone calls to access prices and other marketinformation from their social connections Would designing a dedi-cated MI service offer substantially more benefits to farmers than

ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India Ziegler Garg Tiwary Vashistha Heimerl

simply having mobile phones alone Our findings indicate severalpotential benefits in favor of the former Marketing is hugely time-consuming for farmers and an MI service could eliminate the needto make calls to multiple markets Not every farmer has marketconnections for checking prices over the phone and an MI servicecould reduce this barrier An MI service could also help to providediscretion and avoid social obligations for farmers such as F1 whoreported feeling obligated to sell to a certain commission agent if hecalled that agent to check the prices Commission agents sometimesquote misleading rates to farmers but an MI service could providemore reliable information

However many barriers to market access are simply not address-able by an information system like as danger time and credit Forsome other factorsmdashlike price volatility and unfamiliaritymdashan infor-mation system could provide some assistance but the complexityof vegetable marketing presents challenges

63 Future Work and Design ConsiderationsApart from the information scarcity of prices we demonstratedthrough our interviews the many other barriers that keep farm-ers from accessing other markets such as personal relationshipsprice volatility physical danger credit time unfamiliarity and lackof marketing skills Although we probed some of these barrierswith early-stage prototypes much more work is needed to evalu-ate which barriers are actually addressable using information andcommunication technologies

From our interview and prototyping work we are optimistic thatincluding some non-price information into an MI service could behelpful in this region We found positive reception for indicationsof market capacity price variability and contacts of commissionagents and traders at unfamiliar markets Although the prototypingexercises were rewarding to examine factors and their presenta-tions we will be able to answer many questions only by testingwith full implementations For example although many farmersindicated they would be comfortable calling unfamiliar traders andcommission agents in new markets only a deployment could revealwhether farmers and aggregators would indeed use this feature

We found that farmers often share prices around their villagesand make joint marketing decisions However most existing MI ser-vices target individuals There is an opportunity for more researchabout collaborative uses of market information

Especially because fewwomen can be found in Buxarrsquos wholesalevegetable markets additional work is needed to better understandthe roles and needs of women engaged in vegetable marketing

Our participants showed striking discrepancies in marketingskills some were incredibly savvy experienced marketers whogave us many tips and leveraged connections at dozens of differentmarkets many other farmers were inexperienced constrained andrisk-averse Because of the richness and complexity of vegetablemarketing strategies gaps in these skills are probably not well ad-dressable by a market information service and better suited to othermedia For example it may be fruitful to draw upon Vishwanathanet alrsquos work on consumer marketplace skills [35] They developeda participatory in-person market literacy course in south Indiathat covers topics like checking weights understanding price no-tations developing relationships with merchants and customers

basic accounting and avoiding credit and associated costs Alongthis vein some Loop farmers have suggested organizing lsquofield tripsrsquoto different markets to learn how they work Similarly multimediaapproachesmdashsuch as mFarmrsquos experiments in using community-ledvideo education to help users learn to use their MI service [36]mdashcould be expanded to cover more marketing skills

64 Study BiasesOur sample was not random and not fully representative of thearea All farmers we interviewed used the Loop service and likelyhad some different characteristics relative to non-users Notablyour sample included no women All participating farmers also usedLoop as a source of income and they likely did not want to sayanything that could damage that relationship

65 Ongoing Work by LoopAt the time of writing Loop has started early-stage pilots of anSMS- and IVR-based market price service and trials of a smartphoneapplication built from our prototypes (Section 5) Through theseprototypes we hope to build an MI service that can change themarketing behaviors of Loop farmers solicit farmer feedback aboutfeatures and further develop our user interfaces

Loop has other ongoing projects to address market-access barri-ers outside the reach of an information system One project coordi-nates multiple villages for more cost-effective transportation Toaddress market unfamiliarity Loop has a pilot to explore how partic-ipatory user-generated videos [17] could be leveraged to familiarizeusers with aspects of different markets for example demonstratingthe best way to cut cauliflower for a particular destination Ongo-ing pilots with digital payments allow farmers to send produce todistant markets without the risk and delay of sending cash back

7 CONCLUSIONWe have shown that farmers in Buxar commonly use mobile phonesto acquire price information for bargaining and market choice sug-gesting the usefulness of a market information service to reduceinformation scarcity and information asymmetry We have reportedfactors that limit the usefulness of market price information includ-ing time and convenience unfamiliarity with new markets lackof connections personal relationships price crashes productionvolume attitudes towards risk credit relationships and physicaldanger and we have presented further results from exploratoryuser studies for addressing specific barriers to market access

8 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSThe authors gratefully acknowledge the entire Loop team especiallythose members who contributed to this project Aditya Sethi EricaArya Ashok Kumar Bipin Raj Divish Gupta Abhishek Lodha andS Kaushik We are thankful to our anonymous reviewers who pro-vided important feedback and to Ishan Sapru Chrungoo KonarakRatnakar and Bharat Agarwal who transcribed and translated in-terviews We are especially grateful to the farmers who generouslycontributed their time effort and hospitality

User Research Towards a Market Information Service ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India

REFERENCES[1] RML Agtech 2018 FarmBee httpsfarmbeein Accessed 2018-07-18[2] Yaw Anokwa Thomas N Smyth Divya Ramachandran Jahanzeb Sherwani Yael

Schwartzman Rowena Luk Melissa Ho Neema Moraveji and Brian DeRenzi2009 Stories from the field Reflections on HCI4D experiences InformationTechnologies amp International Development 5 4 (2009)

[3] GSM Association 2013 Mobile Market Information for Agri VAS Operators AQuick Start Guide

[4] World Bank 2012 Information and communications for development 2012Maximizing mobile httpgoworldbankorg0J2CTQTYP0 Accessed 2018-07-18

[5] Heike Baumuumlller 2015 Enhancing smallholder market participation throughmobile phone-enabled services The case of M-Farm in Kenya The ElectronicJournal of Information Systems in Developing Countries 68 (2015) 1ndash16 Issue 6

[6] Heike Baumuumlller 2017 The LittleWe Know An Exploratory Literature Review onthe Utility of Mobile Phone-Enabled Services for Smallholder Farmers Journal ofInternational Development 30 1 (2017) 134ndash154 httpsdoiorg101002jid3314

[7] Raymond A Boadi Richard Boateng Robert Hinson and Robert A Opoku2007 Preliminary Insights into M-commerce Adoption in Ghana InformationDevelopment 23 4 (2007) 253ndash265 httpsdoiorg1011770266666907084761

[8] Virginia Braun and Victoria Clarke 2006 Using thematic analysis in psychologyQualitative Research in Psychology 3 2 (2006) 77ndash101 httpsdoiorg1011911478088706qp063oa

[9] Jenna Burrell and Elisa Oreglia 2015 The myth of market price informationmobile phones and the application of economic knowledge in ICTD Economyand Society 44 2 (2015) 271ndash292 httpsdoiorg1010800308514720151013742

[10] Adriana Camacho and Emily Conover 2010 The Impact of Receiving Price andClimate Information in the Agricultural Sector SSRN Electronic Journal (2010)httpsdoiorg102139ssrn1755057

[11] Pierre Courtois and Julie Subervie 2014 Farmer Bargaining Power and MarketInformation Services American Journal of Agricultural Economics 97 3 (2014)953ndash977 httpsdoiorg101093ajaeaau051

[12] Nicola Dell Vidya Vaidyanathan Indrani Medhi Edward Cutrell and WilliamThies 2012 Yours is Better Participant Response Bias in HCI Proceedings ofthe 2012 ACM annual conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - CHI12 (2012) httpsdoiorg10114522076762208589

[13] Esoko 2018 Mobile and Web Apps for Data Collection and Communicationhttpswwwesokocom Accessed 2018-07-18

[14] Marcel Fafchamps and Ruth Vargas Hill 2008 Price Transmission and TraderEntry in Domestic Commodity Markets Economic Development and CulturalChange 56 4 (2008) 729ndash766 httpsdoiorg101086588155

[15] Marcel Fafchamps and Bart Minten 2012 Impact of SMS-Based AgriculturalInformation on Indian Farmers The World Bank Economic Review 26 3 (Jan 2012)383ndash414 httpsdoiorg101093wberlhr056

[16] NYU Center for Technology and Economic Development 2013 Market Informa-tion Systems for Rural Farmers Evaluation Of Esoko MIS ndash Year 1 Results (Mar2013) httpwwwnyuctedorgarchives1108

[17] Rikin Gandhi Rajesh Veeraraghavan Kentaro Toyama and Vanaja Ramprasad2007 Digital Green Participatory video for agricultural extension 2007 Interna-tional Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Develop-ment (2007) httpsdoiorg101109ictd20074937388

[18] M Sirajul Islam and Ake Groumlnlund 2010 An agricultural market informationservice (AMIS) in Bangladesh evaluating a mobile phone based e-service in arural context Information Development 26 4 (2010) 289ndash302 httpsdoiorg10

11770266666910385556[19] R Jensen 2007 The Digital Provide Information (Technology) Market Perfor-

mance and Welfare in the South Indian Fisheries Sector The Quarterly Journalof Economics 122 3 (Jan 2007) 879ndash924 httpsdoiorg101162qjec1223879

[20] Devesh Kapur andMekhala Krishnamurthy 2014 UnderstandingMandis MarketTowns and the Dynamics of Indiarsquos Rural and Urban Transformations Center forthe Advanced Study of India Working Papers Series F-35007-INC-1 (2014)

[21] Sriganesh Lokanathan Harsha De Silva and Iran Fernando 2011 2 Price trans-parency in agricultural produce markets Sri Lanka Strengthening Rural Liveli-hoods (2011) 15ndash32 httpsdoiorg1033629781780440361002

[22] Loop 2018 Loop Connecting Farmers to Markets httpsloopapporg Accessed2018-07-18

[23] M-Farm Ltd 2018 mFarm httpsmfarmcoke Accessed 2018-07-18[24] Pierre R Meacuterel Richard J Sexton and Aya Suzuki 2009 Optimal Invest-

ment in Transportation Infrastructure When Middlemen Have Market Power ADeveloping-Country Analysis American Journal of Agricultural Economics 91 2(2009) 462ndash476 httpsdoiorg101111j1467-8276200801245x

[25] Eduardo Nakasone 2013 The role of price information in agricultural marketsexperimental evidence from rural Peru In Agricultural amp Applied EconomicsAssociationrsquos 2013 AAEA amp CAES Joint Annual Meeting

[26] Ministry of Health and Government of India Family Welfare 2017 NationalFamily Health Survey 2015-2016 (NFHS-4)

[27] Census of India 2011 List of states with Population Sex Ratio and LiteracyCensus 2011 httpwwwcensus2011coinstatesphp

[28] Martin T Orne 1962 On the social psychology of the psychological experi-ment With particular reference to demand characteristics and their implicationsAmerican Psychologist 17 11 (1962) 776ndash783 httpsdoiorg101037h0043424

[29] Janaki Srinivasan and Jenna Burrell 2013 Revisiting the fishers of Kerala IndiaProceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Information and Commu-nication Technologies and Development Full Papers - ICTD 13 - volume 1 (2013)httpsdoiorg10114525166042516618

[30] George J Stigler 1976 The Economics of Information Lecture Notes in Economicsand Mathematical Systems Mathematical Models in Marketing (1976) 272ndash275httpsdoiorg101007978-3-642-51565-1_86

[31] Joseph E Stiglitz 1989 Chapter 13 Imperfect information in the product marketHandbook of Industrial Organization Handbook of Industrial Organization Volume1 (1989) 769ndash847 httpsdoiorg101016s1573-448x(89)01016-2

[32] Mark Tran 2013 Cassava on eBay M-Farm SMS helps Kenyarsquos farmersget better prices The Guardian (Jul 2013) httpswwwtheguardiancomglobal-development2013jul04m-farm-kenya-food-security

[33] USAID 2013 An Assessment of Market Information Systems in East Africa(May 2013)

[34] Aditya Vashistha Fabian Okeke Richard Anderson and Nicola Dell 2018 rsquoYouCan Always Do Betterrsquo The Impact of Social Proof on Participant Response BiasProceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems -CHI 18 (2018) httpsdoiorg10114531735743174126

[35] Madhubalan Viswanathan S Gajendiran and R Venkatesan 2008 Understandingand Enabling Marketplace Literacy in Subsistence Contexts The developmentof a consumer and entrepreneurial literacy educational program in South IndiaInternational Journal of Educational Development 28 (05 2008) 300ndash319 httpsdoiorg101016jijedudev200705004

[36] SusanWyche and Charles Steinfield 2015 Why Dont Farmers Use Cell Phones toAccess Market Prices Technology Affordances and Barriers to Market Informa-tion Services Adoption in Rural Kenya Information Technology for Development22 2 (2015) 320ndash333 httpsdoiorg1010800268110220151048184

User Research Towards a Market Information Service ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India

perceptions of mobile phones as ldquosocial itemsrdquo rather than infor-mation delivery platforms In the 2012 RML trial [15] a full 41 ofthe 422 households who were offered an RML subscription for freenever used it and the authors cited reasons for this outcome thatincluded illiteracy devicesrsquo inability to display the Marathi scriptand failure to send the sequence of SMS messages to activate theservice In Islam and Groumlnlundrsquos evaluation of the AMIS servicein Bangladesh[18] 80 of 100 of users reported difficulty using theRoman script to access the SMS user interface

23 Factors Affecting Use of Price InformationThese negative evaluations have uncovered a wide range of compli-cating factors that limit producersrsquo benefits from price informationFor example the 2010 AMIS study reported that many farmerswere reluctant to explore new markets because of unfamiliaritywith their business mechanisms [18] In the 2011 Tradenet studymany users were reluctant to change traders because they reliedon them for information and credit [21] The authors of the 2013Esoko evaluation hypothesized that farmers got increased pricesfor yams but not other crops because bargaining played a biggerrole for yam marketing than for other crops [16]

To characterize the limits of market information systems severalyears after Jensenrsquos previously mentioned landmark study [19]Srinivasan and Burrell [29] conducted ethnographic interviews atJensenrsquos original Kerala site and detailed the mechanisms by whichfishers used price information They found that only large boatstended to choose a landing site based on prices the value of theirlarge catches being more sensitive to price fluctuations smallercrews most often just sold at the nearest market prioritizing restafter a long day of work At a second nearby site they found onlysmall fishing boats and dangerous topography that constrictedlanding sites showing that the necessary conditions for price infor-mation to lead to livelihood improvements probably did not holdtrue there From ethnographic studies at sites in China and UgandaBurrell and Oreglia [9] reported that while their informants hadmany other uses of mobile phones for farming and fishing theyldquoconsistently disclaimed any practice of acquiring market price infor-mation for the purpose of comparison between markets (by phone orother means)rdquo for a variety of reasons such as already knowingprices from extension agents or other fishers giving importance topreserving relationships with traders and aversion to taking risks

These results emphasize the need to conduct more location-specific research identify additional local factors that influencefarmersrsquo marketing decisions and evaluate the role ICTs can andcannot play in addressing them In this work we identify processesworkflows and factors that influence market choices of farmers inthe Buxar district We found that farmers commonly used mobilephones to check prices select markets and negotiate deals withtraders

Among ICTs for agriculture marketing there is a paucity ofresearch that addresses farmersrsquo unfamiliarity with markets or dis-parities in marketing skillsWe are not aware of anyMI services thatprovide information to help familiarize users with local marketssuch as market sizes price volatility seasonal variations operatingtimes or vegetable processing advice key foci of our effort

3 BACKGROUNDTo contextualize this work we now provide details about the sharedtransport-to-market service Loop identify key stakeholders in Bi-hari vegetable markets and describe the structures of these markets

According to the 2011 Indian census Bihar has lowest literacyrate (6180) and highest population density (1102km2) of anyIndian state (excluding union territories) [27] The 2015-16 NationalFamily Health Survey in Bihar found that 89 of rural householdshad mobile phones only 59 of households had electricity and 46of households owned agricultural land [26]

31 LoopLoop is an integrated program working to improve smallholderfarmersrsquo livelihoods via improved connections to markets [22] Itoffers a daily door-to-door vegetable pickup service for participatingfarmers Vegetables are sold in the market farmers are paid thefull price on the same day and SMS receipts are sent to them fortransparency Participating farmers benefit by saving time sharingtransport costs gaining access to newmarkets and negotiatingwithbulk quantities Farmers never have any obligation to sell throughLoop they can choose each day whether to participate or sell theirgoods through other channels Farmers always have the option toaccompany the vegetables to market but they usually choose notto Because Loop records every transaction the system already hasaccurate daily price data for many markets making it a suitablefoundation for a market-information system As of November 2018Loop is operating in 4 Indian states and 9 Bangladeshi districts andhas conducted over $14M USD in transactions for 80000 metrictons of vegetables from 26000 farmers

In the version of Loop operating in the Buxar district farmerswho want to send produce with Loop contact the village ldquoaggrega-torrdquo each night The aggregator arranges transportation based uponthe quantity of vegetables The following morning the aggregatorcollects the vegetables accompanies them to market and conductstransactions with traders or commission agents Farmers and aggre-gators jointly decide which market to visit every day Loop providessmartphones to aggregators with which they enter transaction dataand contact traders commission agents and transporters We notethat Loop operates under several different business models andthat the role of aggregators differs in other locations

32 Key Marketplace ActorsBihari vegetable markets have diverse structures and can feature avariety of actors

In-market traders In manymarkets retail traders buy produceduring the morning rush that they then sell to consumers through-out the day Some markets have local traders who charge farmersa small fee for using their scales and help them attract traders bydrawing large volumes together During high-production seasonstraders from distant locations visit many markets en route fromone city to another and buy and sell produce based on prices oftenspecializing in a few types of vegetables

Commission agents These agents known locally in Hindi asGaddidars do not technically buy vegetables rather they leveragetheir business networks to sell vegetables on behalf of farmerscharging a fixed-rate commission per kilogram of sold vegetables

ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India Ziegler Garg Tiwary Vashistha Heimerl

Figure 1 A commission agentrsquos stall with several tons ofcauliflower for sale in Samastipur market

Key responsibilities of commission agents are negotiating goodprices for farmers attracting traders by aggregating big quantitiesfrom many farmers (see Figure 1) and maintaining good relation-ships with all parties Many farmers have long-lasting relationshipswith these agents selling most of their produce through only oneagent Commission agents commonly provide other services tofarmers such as supplying credit or paying farmers immediately incash when payments from traders are delayed While commissionagents are not present in every market they dominate some

Farm-gate traders Some traders buy directly from farmersrsquofields skipping local marketplaces altogether They often supplylabor to farmers for harvesting processing and packing vegeta-bles Some areas have farm-gate traders who buy produce fromfarmers and sell in local markets often paying farmers slightly lessthan market rates but bearing the transport costs During high-production seasons some areas have long-distance traders whobuy at farm-gate to circumvent market fees but demand higherquality produce

Aggregators Aggregators are farmers who conduct transac-tions for Loop In the Buxar districtrsquos version of Loop they collectproduce from farmers transport it to markets conduct transactionsand send payments to the farmers

33 Vegetable Markets in BiharBiharrsquos vegetable markets vary widely in size and have heteroge-neous structures Most farmers sell at wholesale markets dealingin bulk to traders who shuttle the vegetables to other wholesalemarkets or to separate consumer-facing retail markets Some mar-kets are mixed wholesale and retail but many are distinctly one orthe other Prior to 2006 Bihar legally required many crops to besold through public auction at state-owned APMC markets beforereaching consumers Bihar abolished its APMCmarkets in 2006 andthe planned replacement system was never implemented leadingto a proliferation of private markets (which were illegal under theprevious law but nevertheless common) [20]

The Buxar district of Bihar where we conducted our interviewsis characterized by a smattering of small vegetable markets withno single large market that dominates the landscape All marketsare privately owned and the proprietors collect fees from traderscommission agents and farmers The vegetable markets teem with

Figure 2 Farmers stand by their vegetables inDharharamar-ket waiting to be approached by a trader

small buyers and sellers and we encountered no large corporateprocurement channels To our knowledge Bihar has no governmentservice for checking market prices None of the farms or marketswe visited had refrigeration facilities

While some markets have traders and commission agents whorent stalls in other markets farmers set vegetables on the groundand wait for traders to approach them (Figure 2) During busyhours traders move through the markets inspecting qualities andnegotiating prices There is no standardized quality grading systemLaborers hired by traders and commission agents load and unloadvehicles often handling hundreds of sacks every day each typicallyweighing about 60 kilograms (kg)

Prices Prices float up and down based on supply and demandare very difficult to predict and occasionally spike or crash withinminutes Rates are negotiated as a price-per-kg Most vegetablecrops have only a short window of 2ndash4 days when they can beharvested andmust be sold immediately to prevent spoilage leavingfarmers particularly vulnerable to short-term price shocks

Transportation For very small quantities farmers often carryvegetables to market on foot bicycle or motorbike When volumesare low some farmers farmers jointly hire vehicles and usually allaccompany the vehicle to market Farmers commonly hire trans-portation from owners and drivers of small- and medium-sizedvehicles (with capacity of 700ndash2500 kg) who commonly live aroundthe villages During high seasons many farmers have enough veg-etables to hire their own vehicles

Cuts for spoilage After weighing the vegetables traders andcommission agents generally cut the measurements to accountfor spoilage (eg a trader might cut 5 kg from a 70 kg bag andpay only for 65 kg) Vegetables that spoil faster receive a higherspoilage cut The amount cut also varies by market commissionagent and trader and such variations can impact farmersrsquo earningsignificantly

Gender Few women farmers buy or sell produce in the whole-sale markets in Buxar negotitations between agents traders andfarmers are largely handled by men Some regions in Bihar havemore women participating in markets than others several farmerstold us that poorer families are more likely to have women workingin the markets

User Research Towards a Market Information Service ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India

4 FARMER INTERVIEWSTo better understand the potential uses and limitations of an MIservice we interviewed farmers and commission agents about theirmarketing behaviors We chose Buxar as a case study because farm-ers in this area sell vegetables in several different small marketswhereas many other Bihari regions are dominated by a single enor-mous market

41 MethodsWe conducted semi-structured interviews with 11 farmers (denotedF1-F11) 6 Loop aggregators (who are also farmers denoted A1-A6) and 3 commission agents (denoted G1-G3) To capture diverseresponses we sampled farmers and aggregators from six differentvillages in the Buxar district of Bihar Five farmers were selectedrandomly from the Loop user database [F5 F6 F7 F8 F9] and theothers were recruited using convenience sampling we interviewedfarmers who were available when we arrived in their villages

All interviews were conducted in Hindi which was spoken andunderstood well by all interview subjects The interview team con-sisted of two people a regional manager for Loop who had priorworking relationships with the aggregators and spoke fluent Hindiand a research intern for Loop who understood basic Hindi Toavoid pressures and biases from ldquopublic performance interviewsrdquowe tried to hold one-on-one interviews in private settings but manysessions nevertheless drew groups of observers We audio-recordedall interviews except for those with commission agents who all de-clined to consent to recording likely from fear of damaging businessrelationships We took detailed notes for all interviews

We developed semi-structured interview questions in advanceinformed by prior informal conversations with farmers duringLooprsquos long-term field efforts Our interviews investigated a rangeof topics such as phone usage price checking tactics marketchanges over time relationships with different market actors ac-cess to credit and Loop service usage In most interviews thoughwe covered only subsets of the questions due to time constraintsAt the time of our interviews Loop had operated in Buxar for aboutfive months We asked these questions about marketing behaviorsbefore and after beginning Loop use and in the interest of general-izability this paper reports mostly on behaviors before Loop

We transcribed audio recordings and translated interview tran-scripts and field notes to English We reviewed and analyzed dataimmediately after each interview and the insights obtained fromour data analysis added more questions to each subsequent inter-view We subjected transcribed audio recordings and field notes tothematic analysis as outlined by Braun and Clarke [8] A subset ofauthors participated in the coding process they engaged in regulardiscussions and iterated on the codes until consensus was reachedWe now outline key themes that emerged from our analysis ofinterviews with farmers aggregators and commission agents

All of our participants weremen Although Loop has some femalefarmers most often men handle vegetable marketing in this regionMoreover the fact that all interviewers were male made it difficultto recruit female farmers in part due to cultural taboos that restrictwomen from conversing with unfamiliar men

Farmers were aged 20 to 61 (median age 365) and had educationlevels spanning from seven years of formal education to a masterrsquos

degree in Sanskrit (median nine years of education) Reported farmsizes ranged from 04 to 3 acres Most farmers owned land threereported having some land on lease All farmers grew vegetableson their land and some grew wheat seasonally [F1 F7] Whilesome farmers reported agriculture as their only source of income[F7 F9 F10] others also relied on earnings from dairy cattle [F5]remittances from sons working in Dubai [F5] and wages receivedfrom electrical work [F8] We neglected to collect demographicinformation from aggregators and commission agents

Four farmers had smartphones [F3 F4 F6 F8] five had featurephones [F2 F5 F7 F10 F11] and two had no phones but had regis-tered for Loop using their fathersrsquo numbers [F1 F9] All aggrega-tors were provided smartphones by Loop and all three commissionagents had smartphones Among the smartphone users some usedthe Internet and had accounts on Facebook and WhatsApp

42 Acquisition and Use of Price InformationMany participants reported that they andmany farmers in the Buxardistrict made calls over mobile phones to access price informationand used it to choose markets and negotiate better prices withtraders We also received reports of vegetable traders using mobilephones to buy and sell between markets Participants consistentlyreported that they never used SMS WhatsApp or Facebook forvegetable marketing We are not aware of any government helplineservice for vegetable prices in Bihar and participants consistentlydenied having heard of one [F5 A3 G1 G2 F8 F10]

Price information sources Most participants reported usingmobile phones to access prices by sending or receiving voice calls[F1 F4 F6 F8 F10 F11 A2 A4 A5 G1 G2 G3] An aggregator(A2) stated ldquoI call and check prices frequently Every day differentmarkets different timesrdquo While some participants checked pricesdaily [F11 A2 A4] others checked only on occasion [F2 F8]

Some farmers reported that they usually didnrsquot check pricesbefore going to market and had different reasons not to find itworthwhile [F2 F7 F8 F9 A3] For example F7 did not check pricesbefore going to his local market since he knew that it usually hadgood rates Similarly F3 did not check prices because he trustedthe local traders ldquoThey never quote too littlerdquo

Price sharing among farmers appeared to be widespread Manyinterviewees reported getting prices from others in their villagefrequently from in-person conversations [F1 F5 F6 F8 F10 F11 A1A2 A3 A4] For local markets at least this finding supports Burrelland Oregliarsquos claim that price information is often not scarce [9]

Many farmers reportedmaking phone calls to commission agentsto check prices [F2 F4 F6 F10 F11 A2 A4] All participatingcommission agents also reported getting regular calls from farmersSince commission agents act only as intermediaries and do notactually buy vegetables farmers reported calling them only tocheck market rates but not to pre-arrange deals A commissionagent G3 stated that ldquo20ndash25 farmers call me every dayrdquo during bothhigh and low production seasons and that farmers call to checkprices but never to discuss quantities Some farmers reported freelycalling several commission agents to compare prices [F4 F6 F11A2 A4] however F2 reported that many farmers in his villagewere constrained by their relationships with commission agentsand were obligated to bring produce if they called to check rates

ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India Ziegler Garg Tiwary Vashistha Heimerl

Farmers having stable relationships with commission agents told usthat the agents nearly always quoted accurate prices [F1 A2] Somefarmers reported that unfamiliar commission agents sometimesmislead farmers by quoting prices higher than the real prevailingprice to draw farmers to their market [F1 F2 F8 F10]

Some farmers reported calling both in-market and farm-gatetraders to check prices and make verbal deals to sell over the phoneagreeing on a quantity and a price [F8 F10 A5] Sometimes as in thecase of F8 traders also called farmers when they need vegetablesthey offer a price and tell farmers the quantity to bring

Market choices A few participants reported checking pricesat several markets before deciding where to take their vegetables[F10 F11 A2 A5] For example A5 shared that he sold his produceto retail traders at three local markets and called each market tocheck prices and make a verbal agreement about rates before goingSimilarly F10 reported calling a commission agent to check pricesat a distant large market to decide whether to go and then checkingprices with other agents after he arrived at the market

Negotiation Many farmers reported using price informationin negotiations comparing tradersrsquo rates against other traders andagainst market prices [F2 F6 F7 F8 F10 F11 A3 A4 A5] Forexample F7 stated ldquoWe negotiate with farm-gate traders based on theprevious dayrsquos market rates We offer 2 rupees above yesterdayrsquos rateand then the traders negotiate it down to 1 rupee above yesterdayrsquosraterdquo In another example F8 said that he called traders in the largefar-off Ara market to gain negotiating power against local traderssince rates were always |2ndash8 higher there

Arbitrage Commission agents reported that traders regularlyused mobile phones for arbitrage leveraging price information tobuy produce in one market and sell it in another For example G3shared that 5ndash6 outside traders came to his market daily duringpeak season and called in themornings to check prices Commissionagent G1 also reported calling other markets daily to check pricesand arrange deals with traders

43 Changes in Markets After Mobile PhonesSeveral participants reported significant changes in vegetable mar-kets since 2015 around the same time when mobile phones re-portedly became widespread in this area [G3 F11] These changesincluded big increases in the numbers of traders shifts in mar-ket activity and stabilization of prices Some participants directlyattributed the changes to mobile phones [F11 A2 G3] For exam-ple F11 stated ldquoEarlier before mobile phones were here not manytraders came But now that they know the rates they come here tobuy vegetablesrdquo Some participants noted that improvements in roadconnectivity around the same time also likely played an importantrole [F4 F11 A4] as well as shifts in trader patterns due a bridgebecoming impassable [F4 A4]

Many participants reported a large increase in the number oftraders since about 2015 [F4 F7 F11 A2 G3] For example A2 notedthat only 2ndash4 farm-gate traders used to come to his village dailyand the number had increased to about 15ndash20 at present Becauseof increased trader activity in local markets some farmers shiftedfrom selling in distant markets to local ones [F4 F7 A4] FarmerF7 had gone to the large distant Ara market until 3ndash4 years agosaying ldquoThe traders from Ara market are coming here now so there

is no point in going to Ara marketrdquo Conversely some other farmerswho had previously used only local markets began selling at distantmarkets because of new contacts with agents [F11]

We heard some reports of price stabilization since 2015 someparticipants reported fewer supply gluts and price crashes [A2G3] According to G3 ldquoBefore having mobile phones traders hadbetter margins because not many people had price information Noweverybody knows the pricesrdquo

Farmers told us about a variety of marketing heuristics they usedfor price discovery before the availability of mobile phones A2told us that he watched where other farmers sent vegetable trucksfrom his village and then sent his vegetables in other directions toavoid oversupply F4 stated that he went to far-off markets at thebeginning of a harvest of a particular crop because demand washigh then and supply low A2 (and several others) explained thatwhen the winds arose from the east and brought humidity for 2ndash3days production and quality increased traders knew this too sothese winds also brought the distance-traders to local markets

44 Non-Price Factors Impacting MarketingDecisions

Though price information was a key factor that influenced farmersrsquomarketing decisions participants also reported many other factorssuch as market capacity production volume time convenienceunfamiliarity with markets personal relationships connectionsrisk credit relationships and physical danger We now report onsome of these factors

Supply gluts and market capacity Participants reported thatmarkets occasionally became overwhelmed by large amounts ofproduce In such scenarios price crashes were common and farmerscould not sell any vegetables leading to severe losses Many farmersmentioned market capacity as an overriding concern the mostimportant factor for their profitability was their ability to sell theirentire stock of vegetables Some farmers expressed reluctance totry new markets due to fears of price crashes Since such crasheswere frequent in some small local markets during high productionseasons many farmers viewed either selling produce to farm-gatetraders or going to bigger far-away markets as safer options [F2F10 A4] A2 shared ldquoIf the market here has more harvest then wego to distant markets I have learned a lot by selling vegetables overthe years Letrsquos say I have 2 quintal [200kg] of tomatoes and if I getto know someone else has 5 quintal then I know that the rate fortomatoes is going to drop Itrsquos a competition cyclerdquo The capacity of amarket depends roughly on the number of traders In export-drivenmarkets outside traders come seasonally so capacity varies overthe year [F7 F8 A2]

Production volume and seasonalityWe observed that farm-ersrsquo marketing behaviors varied with their production volumeswhich depended on their farm sizes and seasonal changes Whenproduction was high volume often exceeded the capacity of localmarkets so farmers made the investment to try more distant mar-kets with higher capacities [A4 F8 F9] When volume was verylow some farmers did not find it worthwhile to put effort into mar-keting so they opted for convenience they stuck to local marketssold to local traders or simply sent their produce to market alongwith another farmer [F3 F5 A3 F6] F8 told us ldquoI never make any

User Research Towards a Market Information Service ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India

decision on prices When the volume is low I go to Dumri marketwhen itrsquos high I go to Nayabhojpur marketrdquo F5 a farmer with smallvolume regularly took a two-hour train to Patna the capital city tosell his vegetables in a retail market because it was too difficult tosell small quantities in wholesale ones Vehicle capacity presentedanother constraint during peak season insufficient vehicles wereavailable for hire so vegetables went to waste [F10]

Time and convenienceMarket trips could be immensely time-consuming for farmers and one of the biggest barriers to usingalternative markets was simply that it took too long During highproduction seasons farmers commonly went to market every 1ndash3 days [F2 F6 F8] Traveling to distant markets was reported tobe a major time investment some farmers reported making tripswith 2ndash4 hours of transport time each way [F2 F5] and sometimestraveling the whole night [F4 A2]

Once at the market they often waited for traders to buy theirproduce which on good days took 30 to 60 minutes [F1 F6] How-ever during high production season the sales often took muchlonger Farmers reported spending 3ndash5 hours to sell their produce[F6 F8] F1 said ldquoWhen there is a lot of harvest sometimes it takesthe whole day to sellrdquo

Some farmers reported selling to farm-gate traders because ofconvenience Farm-gate traders often supplied labor to handle thecutting packing and other processing this saved the time andhassle of going to the market [F3 F5 F10] F3 explained ldquoNow thatthese people do it I just give it to them I could not manage witheverything I am growing oldrdquo Many farmers also cited convenienceand time savings as reasons for using Loop [F3 F5 F7 F8 F9]

Unfamiliarity with newmarkets Farmers reported that lackof familiarity with new markets was a significant barrier againsttrying them Diversity in market structures and operations madeselling in a new market a daunting task and missteps could lead tobig losses For example A6 shared why some farmers were hesitantto try new markets ldquoIf farmers have to go to a distant market on ahot day and the stock is unprepared they might reach there late Ifthey reach late the market will be down by then Then who will taketheir stock He [the agent] will say lsquoyou have come so latersquo rdquo

Several farmers stressed the importance of gathering informationabout a new market before bringing vegetables there to sell such aswhich commission agents were good howmuch volume the marketcould handle who the major traders were whether vegetables camefrom outside which vegetables sold well and the peak operatingtimes throughout the year [F1 F4 A2 A4 A6] When asked whatadvice he would offer to other farmers A2 replied ldquoThe farmersneed to go to the markets and study the customers prices and qualityof harvest Without studying and experiencing it one cannot learnrdquoHe later told us ldquoThey should have a trusting relationship with thecommission agents and should know about the marketrsquos operationssuch as rates and processes all these things so they can handle themarketrsquos intricacies and fetch good prices Farmers should be informedabout the markets well before going If farmers are not well-informedand only make decisions on the basis of prices it will not be goodbecause every market has different operationsrdquo

In-market connections Participants told us that having con-nections in a market made selling produce much easier by providinginformation and help [F1 F4 A2 A4 A6] We heard several storiesof farmers trying new markets for the first time because they had

formed a connection with a commission agent [F1 F2 F8 F11] F11told us that he had never sold at any distant markets before gettinga mobile phone and he recently started going to the distant Bhastiand Bharadpur markets after getting phone numbers of commissionagents there from a local trader Similarly F2 tried going to thefar-off Sikanderpur market after meeting a Sikanderpur commissionagent who had come to his village Apart from just informationconnections were valuable for other support During our interviewof F1 another farmer interjected ldquoWhen we go to Buxar market weknow the commission agents If they are taking money then we canfight for our money because we know them With a different marketwe donrsquot know the commission agents we donrsquot have any power toexercise there So we donrsquot prefer those marketsrdquo

Relationships with commission agents Some farmers re-ported long-lasting relationships with commission agents onlyselling with 1 or 2 consistently [F1 F2] In these relationships com-mission agents often expected loyalty since collecting big volumesfrom many farmers was important for attracting traders F4 toldus that a farmer changing agents created a bad reputation in thatmarket and agents were less likely to extend credit or value thatfarmersrsquo business ldquoAll goes wrong if you keep switching agentsrdquo

Many interview subjects stressed the importance of trust be-tween farmers and commission agents [F1 F2 F4 A2 G1 G2 G3]because they are mutually dependent on each other to maintaintheir reputations exchange accurate information and uphold dealsCommission agents told us about their efforts to build relationshipswith farmers such as calling to ask about their families [G3] andgiving farmers gifts like tea Sprite and flashlights [G2]

Sometimes despite these relationships with commission agentsfarmers sold to other traders under the table For example F1 re-ported that sometimes traders would wait on the road outside themarket and approach farmers before they entered to avoid payingthe agentsrsquo commissions

Other farmers reported no such commitments to commissionagents and sold freely via different traders and agents based on priceonly [F7 F8 F9 A5] We heard many responses like ldquoWhicheveragent is giving good prices we prefer to go with themrsquo [F9] A5 toldus assertively ldquoWe want the price we donrsquot want a relationshiprdquo

Risk We encountered different attitudes towards risk-takingduring our interviews We speculate that wealthier farmers havebetter access to markets because they are more comfortable takingrisks with a financial safety cushion to fall on when things do notwork out Poor farmers are probably more constrained more oftenchoosing what they perceive as the safest option

Some farmers discussed price crashes frankly seeming to acceptthem as a part of doing business [F4 F5 F6 F8 A2] For exampleF5 stated ldquoYeah I have had to return home with the stock If today Iget a bad rate I might get a good rate tomorrowrdquo

Farmers F1 and F2 on the other hand appeared much morehesitant to take risks When asked why they seldom tried marketsother than Buxar they expressed concerns about spending toomuchto go to those markets without any guarantee that they would getgood rates and they recounted stories about visiting new marketsin the past and finding worse prices

The infrastructure of vegetable marketing in Bihar distributesrisk between all the different actors Commission agents and tradersabsorb some of the farmersrsquo risk A main benefit of selling through

ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India Ziegler Garg Tiwary Vashistha Heimerl

commission agents is that they usually pay farmers cash immedi-ately when the produce is sold to a trader Payments from tradersare sometimes delayed [F4 F9] since traders send cash throughintermediaries or pay only after selling the crops at another marketwhich usually takes 1ndash2 days but can take much longer when pricescrash [G1 G3] Commission agents in this way insulate farmersfrom price crash risks Local farm-gate traders often pay less thanmarket rates but in return they bare the transportation cost andthe risk of price fluctuations F3 told us ldquoI am too old to take care ofthe market things traders are a luxury because they take the riskrdquo

Credit After taking loans from commission agents at plantingtime some farmers were obligated to sell their vegetables throughthose agents [F1 F4 G2] Commission agent G2 explained thatwhen selling vegetables for farmers who have credit from him hewithheld |1ndash2 per kg of the payment for 2ndash3 days and then paid therest to the farmer only when he returned to sell more vegetables F4told us that commission agents sometimes offered him credit buthe refused so that he was not obligated to sell his produce throughthem All three commission agents who we interviewed insistedthat they did not charge interest on loans to farmers instead theyused the loans as a way to create business F1 however told us thathe payed |20 per |100 per month in interest to his agent

From our interviews the prevalence of these credit relationshipsbetween farmers and commission agents was unclear Only oneparticipant (F1) reported taking credit from agents However com-mission agent G2 told us that he gave credit to about 20 of every 100farmers he dealt with usually in amounts of |10000ndash|20000 F2told us that his commission agent gave him |500ndash|2000 advancesfor personal expenses but not larger loans Participants reportedhaving access to various other sources of credit such as local mon-eylenders [F6 F8] relatives and neighbors [F7 F10] None of thefarmers reported getting credit from vegetable traders

Danger and Bribes The peak activity of most big markets is inthe early morning and when the market is far away farmers haveto travel at night to reach in time Many farmers in our study areaexpressed reluctance to travel at night because of danger Somefarmers worried about getting robbed [F6] F2 and F10 stoppedgoing to distant markets because of police bribes F10 shared ldquoTherewas a problem with the police that resulted in a hassle to go there Onthe way there are two police vans by the road in the night checkpointand they ask for |200ndash500 There are about 10ndash15 such checkpointsYou end up giving about |3000 for the vehicle and about |1500 tothe police so any difference in market prices is a loss to usrdquo

45 Summary of InterviewsParticipants reported diverse marketing strategies some farmersregularly called connections to sell vegetables at many differentmarkets while others were bound to a specific commission agentin their local market or opted for the convenience of local tradersWe recorded reports of many but not all farmers using price in-formation to choose markets and negotiate with traders as well astraders using mobile phones for arbitrage between markets

We collected anecdotal reports of changes in markets aroundthe same time that mobile phones became widespread in the areaincluding increased numbers of traders shifts in market activity

and stabilization of prices Other factors influencing farmersrsquo mar-keting decisions included market capacity production volume timeunfamiliarity personal relationships risk credit and danger

5 MARKET INFO APP PAPER PROTOTYPESTo explore which market-access factors could be addressable withanMI service we next conducted a cognitive walkthrough and light-weight usability study of a series of low-fidelity system prototypesbuilt off of Loop and using Loop aggregators

As seen in our interviews and demonstrated by other Loop de-ployments Loop farmers often accessed previously-impracticalmarkets due to time savings and the pooling of transport costs Wethus focused on the use case of farmers considering new unfamiliarmarkets and the subset of market-access barriers that we believedto be most addressable via an information service including marketcontacts price volatility market capacity and transportation

51 MethodsWe designed four iterations of paper prototypes and tested theprototypes with nine Loop aggregators Sessions were conductedin the Buxar and Samastipur districts of Bihar Most participantswere selected using a convenience sampling methodology for be-ing present while conducting other Loop-related business a fewwere selected for being engaged Loop users Participants typicallyhad more education than other farmers all were literate and hadexperience using smartphones Many participants already had ex-perience with RampD processes having previously participated inexperimental Loop pilots

For testing we asked participants to imagine a hypothetical situa-tion in which they had to choose between unfamiliar markets to selltheir vegetables and navigate the paper prototypes withmocked-updata to find information and make a decision We carefully observedparticipants while they interacted with the prototypes and askedthem to speak their thought processes aloud Using the prototypesas a conversation piece we held open-ended conversations withthe participants about how to improve the designs and what otherfeatures they would like

Since prior work has noted high levels of response bias whenevaluating prototypes in HCI4D contexts [2 12 28] we used theldquosocial proofrdquo method to prime participants finding it surprisinglyeffective for soliciting critical feedback [34] We told participants atthe onset of the evaluation sessions that previous participants hadfound the screens confusing did not understand what the buttonsdid and did not find the features useful

52 FindingsHere we present our results that suggest avenues for addressingsome of the market-access barriers uncovered in our user research

Price stability andmarket capacity To help users know howstable or volatile prices are at a particular market we experimentedwith interfaces for showing historic prices We asked four aggrega-tors how many days of past prices they wanted to see and everyparticipant consistently answered that they wanted to see pricesonly for the last 2ndash4 daysParticipants reported that showing moredates would be unnecessary they could not predict future pricesfrom past prices and assessing price stability was the only use

User Research Towards a Market Information Service ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India

(a) Graph confusing (b) Dots unhelpful (c) Preferred

Figure 3 Presentations of past market prices to show mar-ket volatility All users preferred 3c (Figures are translatedfrom Hindi to English for this paper)

Graphs and visualizations are frequently used to show historicprices in many other contexts but we found them not to be useful inthis application Bar graphs (Figure 3a) confused participants othervisualizations (3b) were easier to understand but participants stillreported finding them unhelpful and unnecessarily complicated Allparticipants preferred the simplicity of seeing the prices in tabularform with no visualization (3c)

To communicate market capacity we showed screens labelingmarkets as lsquobig marketrsquo lsquomedium marketrsquo and lsquosmall marketrsquo show-ing these labels for multiple markets together so users could usefamiliar markets as references for unfamiliar ones (Figure 4a) Mostusers responded positively to this feature but we received feedbackthat some market sizes varied by season and that we should notewhich markets had outside traders who came seasonally

Transport costs During the usability tests with hypotheticalscenarios we asked users to find the market with the best payoffafter factoring in transportation costs We watched several usersstruggle to calculate payoff estimations having to keep track ofmany different numbers We considered awkward payoff-calculatorinterfaces that required significant data entry from users but wefound it more effective to simply show the cost of sending a pickuptruck to each market side-by-side with the prices (Figure 4a) Sinceonly one or two crops usually dominate a dayrsquos market trip thismock gave users the necessary information conveniently in onescreen Farmers commonly hire many different types of vehicleswith different costs but we opted to show only the cost of a pickuptruck on this screen because for distant markets it is rarely cost-effective to send any vehicle smaller than a pickup

Contacts Since many farmers cited the lack of contacts as abarrier to exploring newmarkets we showed a simple contacts pagefor commission agents at each market (see Figure 4b) We askedparticipants how they would choose which agent to contact anddiscussed options such as a rating system for agents or showingbiographical information such as vegetable specialties Several toldus that when scoping out a new market they looked for agentswith the most customers since that meant they were likely to begood agents Some participants stated that they would simply preferLoop to recommend a commission agent to them and that theywould trust the recommendation In addition to contact details ofcommission agents several participants told us that they wouldlike contacts of Loop farmers who frequented other markets sothey could learn from each other

We learned through this exercise that some factorsmdashincludingprice volatility transportation and payoff calculation and agent

(a) Mock prices screen forone crop showing marketsizes and transport costs

(b) Mock screen showingcommission agents for amarket

Figure 4 Example screen mocks shown to participants

contactsmdashare addressable through a mobile app or similar serviceHowever other important information for vegetable marketing iscomplex and difficult to capture in the structures of an MI serviceeg specific quality and processing information for each crop ateach market or the fact that one particular market shifts to nighttime for several months during the winter These factors may bebetter addressable through other media

6 DISCUSSIONWe set out to understand the potential benefits and limits of a mar-ket information service in Buxar Bihar Results from our interviewsand prototype exercises show how the arrival of mobile phoneshas brought changes to Buxarrsquos vegetable markets and examinethe many factors that influence farmersrsquo marketing behaviors Weend with a discussion of design considerations for MI services andother strategies to address market-access barriers

61 Information Asymmetry and ScarcityConsistent with the theories of information asymmetry and infor-mation scarcity we found evidence in the Buxar district showingthat conditions seemed favorable for improved market efficiencydue to better availability of price information Farmers frequentlyused their mobile phones to get price information from differentmarkets some using the prices to choose a market and negotiatewith traders After the widespread adoption of mobile phones in thearea farmers reported market changes consistent with the informa-tion scarcity theory with more traders moving vegetables betweenmarkets and fewer price crashes We also heard reports of farmersusing price information to negotiate higher prices from traders con-sistent with the information asymmetry theory Especially whencompared to other research that did not find such conditions inother locations [9 29] our work reinforces the importance of local-ization in the studies of MI services

62 Usefulness of an MI ServiceMany farmers used phone calls to access prices and other marketinformation from their social connections Would designing a dedi-cated MI service offer substantially more benefits to farmers than

ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India Ziegler Garg Tiwary Vashistha Heimerl

simply having mobile phones alone Our findings indicate severalpotential benefits in favor of the former Marketing is hugely time-consuming for farmers and an MI service could eliminate the needto make calls to multiple markets Not every farmer has marketconnections for checking prices over the phone and an MI servicecould reduce this barrier An MI service could also help to providediscretion and avoid social obligations for farmers such as F1 whoreported feeling obligated to sell to a certain commission agent if hecalled that agent to check the prices Commission agents sometimesquote misleading rates to farmers but an MI service could providemore reliable information

However many barriers to market access are simply not address-able by an information system like as danger time and credit Forsome other factorsmdashlike price volatility and unfamiliaritymdashan infor-mation system could provide some assistance but the complexityof vegetable marketing presents challenges

63 Future Work and Design ConsiderationsApart from the information scarcity of prices we demonstratedthrough our interviews the many other barriers that keep farm-ers from accessing other markets such as personal relationshipsprice volatility physical danger credit time unfamiliarity and lackof marketing skills Although we probed some of these barrierswith early-stage prototypes much more work is needed to evalu-ate which barriers are actually addressable using information andcommunication technologies

From our interview and prototyping work we are optimistic thatincluding some non-price information into an MI service could behelpful in this region We found positive reception for indicationsof market capacity price variability and contacts of commissionagents and traders at unfamiliar markets Although the prototypingexercises were rewarding to examine factors and their presenta-tions we will be able to answer many questions only by testingwith full implementations For example although many farmersindicated they would be comfortable calling unfamiliar traders andcommission agents in new markets only a deployment could revealwhether farmers and aggregators would indeed use this feature

We found that farmers often share prices around their villagesand make joint marketing decisions However most existing MI ser-vices target individuals There is an opportunity for more researchabout collaborative uses of market information

Especially because fewwomen can be found in Buxarrsquos wholesalevegetable markets additional work is needed to better understandthe roles and needs of women engaged in vegetable marketing

Our participants showed striking discrepancies in marketingskills some were incredibly savvy experienced marketers whogave us many tips and leveraged connections at dozens of differentmarkets many other farmers were inexperienced constrained andrisk-averse Because of the richness and complexity of vegetablemarketing strategies gaps in these skills are probably not well ad-dressable by a market information service and better suited to othermedia For example it may be fruitful to draw upon Vishwanathanet alrsquos work on consumer marketplace skills [35] They developeda participatory in-person market literacy course in south Indiathat covers topics like checking weights understanding price no-tations developing relationships with merchants and customers

basic accounting and avoiding credit and associated costs Alongthis vein some Loop farmers have suggested organizing lsquofield tripsrsquoto different markets to learn how they work Similarly multimediaapproachesmdashsuch as mFarmrsquos experiments in using community-ledvideo education to help users learn to use their MI service [36]mdashcould be expanded to cover more marketing skills

64 Study BiasesOur sample was not random and not fully representative of thearea All farmers we interviewed used the Loop service and likelyhad some different characteristics relative to non-users Notablyour sample included no women All participating farmers also usedLoop as a source of income and they likely did not want to sayanything that could damage that relationship

65 Ongoing Work by LoopAt the time of writing Loop has started early-stage pilots of anSMS- and IVR-based market price service and trials of a smartphoneapplication built from our prototypes (Section 5) Through theseprototypes we hope to build an MI service that can change themarketing behaviors of Loop farmers solicit farmer feedback aboutfeatures and further develop our user interfaces

Loop has other ongoing projects to address market-access barri-ers outside the reach of an information system One project coordi-nates multiple villages for more cost-effective transportation Toaddress market unfamiliarity Loop has a pilot to explore how partic-ipatory user-generated videos [17] could be leveraged to familiarizeusers with aspects of different markets for example demonstratingthe best way to cut cauliflower for a particular destination Ongo-ing pilots with digital payments allow farmers to send produce todistant markets without the risk and delay of sending cash back

7 CONCLUSIONWe have shown that farmers in Buxar commonly use mobile phonesto acquire price information for bargaining and market choice sug-gesting the usefulness of a market information service to reduceinformation scarcity and information asymmetry We have reportedfactors that limit the usefulness of market price information includ-ing time and convenience unfamiliarity with new markets lackof connections personal relationships price crashes productionvolume attitudes towards risk credit relationships and physicaldanger and we have presented further results from exploratoryuser studies for addressing specific barriers to market access

8 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSThe authors gratefully acknowledge the entire Loop team especiallythose members who contributed to this project Aditya Sethi EricaArya Ashok Kumar Bipin Raj Divish Gupta Abhishek Lodha andS Kaushik We are thankful to our anonymous reviewers who pro-vided important feedback and to Ishan Sapru Chrungoo KonarakRatnakar and Bharat Agarwal who transcribed and translated in-terviews We are especially grateful to the farmers who generouslycontributed their time effort and hospitality

User Research Towards a Market Information Service ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India

REFERENCES[1] RML Agtech 2018 FarmBee httpsfarmbeein Accessed 2018-07-18[2] Yaw Anokwa Thomas N Smyth Divya Ramachandran Jahanzeb Sherwani Yael

Schwartzman Rowena Luk Melissa Ho Neema Moraveji and Brian DeRenzi2009 Stories from the field Reflections on HCI4D experiences InformationTechnologies amp International Development 5 4 (2009)

[3] GSM Association 2013 Mobile Market Information for Agri VAS Operators AQuick Start Guide

[4] World Bank 2012 Information and communications for development 2012Maximizing mobile httpgoworldbankorg0J2CTQTYP0 Accessed 2018-07-18

[5] Heike Baumuumlller 2015 Enhancing smallholder market participation throughmobile phone-enabled services The case of M-Farm in Kenya The ElectronicJournal of Information Systems in Developing Countries 68 (2015) 1ndash16 Issue 6

[6] Heike Baumuumlller 2017 The LittleWe Know An Exploratory Literature Review onthe Utility of Mobile Phone-Enabled Services for Smallholder Farmers Journal ofInternational Development 30 1 (2017) 134ndash154 httpsdoiorg101002jid3314

[7] Raymond A Boadi Richard Boateng Robert Hinson and Robert A Opoku2007 Preliminary Insights into M-commerce Adoption in Ghana InformationDevelopment 23 4 (2007) 253ndash265 httpsdoiorg1011770266666907084761

[8] Virginia Braun and Victoria Clarke 2006 Using thematic analysis in psychologyQualitative Research in Psychology 3 2 (2006) 77ndash101 httpsdoiorg1011911478088706qp063oa

[9] Jenna Burrell and Elisa Oreglia 2015 The myth of market price informationmobile phones and the application of economic knowledge in ICTD Economyand Society 44 2 (2015) 271ndash292 httpsdoiorg1010800308514720151013742

[10] Adriana Camacho and Emily Conover 2010 The Impact of Receiving Price andClimate Information in the Agricultural Sector SSRN Electronic Journal (2010)httpsdoiorg102139ssrn1755057

[11] Pierre Courtois and Julie Subervie 2014 Farmer Bargaining Power and MarketInformation Services American Journal of Agricultural Economics 97 3 (2014)953ndash977 httpsdoiorg101093ajaeaau051

[12] Nicola Dell Vidya Vaidyanathan Indrani Medhi Edward Cutrell and WilliamThies 2012 Yours is Better Participant Response Bias in HCI Proceedings ofthe 2012 ACM annual conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - CHI12 (2012) httpsdoiorg10114522076762208589

[13] Esoko 2018 Mobile and Web Apps for Data Collection and Communicationhttpswwwesokocom Accessed 2018-07-18

[14] Marcel Fafchamps and Ruth Vargas Hill 2008 Price Transmission and TraderEntry in Domestic Commodity Markets Economic Development and CulturalChange 56 4 (2008) 729ndash766 httpsdoiorg101086588155

[15] Marcel Fafchamps and Bart Minten 2012 Impact of SMS-Based AgriculturalInformation on Indian Farmers The World Bank Economic Review 26 3 (Jan 2012)383ndash414 httpsdoiorg101093wberlhr056

[16] NYU Center for Technology and Economic Development 2013 Market Informa-tion Systems for Rural Farmers Evaluation Of Esoko MIS ndash Year 1 Results (Mar2013) httpwwwnyuctedorgarchives1108

[17] Rikin Gandhi Rajesh Veeraraghavan Kentaro Toyama and Vanaja Ramprasad2007 Digital Green Participatory video for agricultural extension 2007 Interna-tional Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Develop-ment (2007) httpsdoiorg101109ictd20074937388

[18] M Sirajul Islam and Ake Groumlnlund 2010 An agricultural market informationservice (AMIS) in Bangladesh evaluating a mobile phone based e-service in arural context Information Development 26 4 (2010) 289ndash302 httpsdoiorg10

11770266666910385556[19] R Jensen 2007 The Digital Provide Information (Technology) Market Perfor-

mance and Welfare in the South Indian Fisheries Sector The Quarterly Journalof Economics 122 3 (Jan 2007) 879ndash924 httpsdoiorg101162qjec1223879

[20] Devesh Kapur andMekhala Krishnamurthy 2014 UnderstandingMandis MarketTowns and the Dynamics of Indiarsquos Rural and Urban Transformations Center forthe Advanced Study of India Working Papers Series F-35007-INC-1 (2014)

[21] Sriganesh Lokanathan Harsha De Silva and Iran Fernando 2011 2 Price trans-parency in agricultural produce markets Sri Lanka Strengthening Rural Liveli-hoods (2011) 15ndash32 httpsdoiorg1033629781780440361002

[22] Loop 2018 Loop Connecting Farmers to Markets httpsloopapporg Accessed2018-07-18

[23] M-Farm Ltd 2018 mFarm httpsmfarmcoke Accessed 2018-07-18[24] Pierre R Meacuterel Richard J Sexton and Aya Suzuki 2009 Optimal Invest-

ment in Transportation Infrastructure When Middlemen Have Market Power ADeveloping-Country Analysis American Journal of Agricultural Economics 91 2(2009) 462ndash476 httpsdoiorg101111j1467-8276200801245x

[25] Eduardo Nakasone 2013 The role of price information in agricultural marketsexperimental evidence from rural Peru In Agricultural amp Applied EconomicsAssociationrsquos 2013 AAEA amp CAES Joint Annual Meeting

[26] Ministry of Health and Government of India Family Welfare 2017 NationalFamily Health Survey 2015-2016 (NFHS-4)

[27] Census of India 2011 List of states with Population Sex Ratio and LiteracyCensus 2011 httpwwwcensus2011coinstatesphp

[28] Martin T Orne 1962 On the social psychology of the psychological experi-ment With particular reference to demand characteristics and their implicationsAmerican Psychologist 17 11 (1962) 776ndash783 httpsdoiorg101037h0043424

[29] Janaki Srinivasan and Jenna Burrell 2013 Revisiting the fishers of Kerala IndiaProceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Information and Commu-nication Technologies and Development Full Papers - ICTD 13 - volume 1 (2013)httpsdoiorg10114525166042516618

[30] George J Stigler 1976 The Economics of Information Lecture Notes in Economicsand Mathematical Systems Mathematical Models in Marketing (1976) 272ndash275httpsdoiorg101007978-3-642-51565-1_86

[31] Joseph E Stiglitz 1989 Chapter 13 Imperfect information in the product marketHandbook of Industrial Organization Handbook of Industrial Organization Volume1 (1989) 769ndash847 httpsdoiorg101016s1573-448x(89)01016-2

[32] Mark Tran 2013 Cassava on eBay M-Farm SMS helps Kenyarsquos farmersget better prices The Guardian (Jul 2013) httpswwwtheguardiancomglobal-development2013jul04m-farm-kenya-food-security

[33] USAID 2013 An Assessment of Market Information Systems in East Africa(May 2013)

[34] Aditya Vashistha Fabian Okeke Richard Anderson and Nicola Dell 2018 rsquoYouCan Always Do Betterrsquo The Impact of Social Proof on Participant Response BiasProceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems -CHI 18 (2018) httpsdoiorg10114531735743174126

[35] Madhubalan Viswanathan S Gajendiran and R Venkatesan 2008 Understandingand Enabling Marketplace Literacy in Subsistence Contexts The developmentof a consumer and entrepreneurial literacy educational program in South IndiaInternational Journal of Educational Development 28 (05 2008) 300ndash319 httpsdoiorg101016jijedudev200705004

[36] SusanWyche and Charles Steinfield 2015 Why Dont Farmers Use Cell Phones toAccess Market Prices Technology Affordances and Barriers to Market Informa-tion Services Adoption in Rural Kenya Information Technology for Development22 2 (2015) 320ndash333 httpsdoiorg1010800268110220151048184

ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India Ziegler Garg Tiwary Vashistha Heimerl

Figure 1 A commission agentrsquos stall with several tons ofcauliflower for sale in Samastipur market

Key responsibilities of commission agents are negotiating goodprices for farmers attracting traders by aggregating big quantitiesfrom many farmers (see Figure 1) and maintaining good relation-ships with all parties Many farmers have long-lasting relationshipswith these agents selling most of their produce through only oneagent Commission agents commonly provide other services tofarmers such as supplying credit or paying farmers immediately incash when payments from traders are delayed While commissionagents are not present in every market they dominate some

Farm-gate traders Some traders buy directly from farmersrsquofields skipping local marketplaces altogether They often supplylabor to farmers for harvesting processing and packing vegeta-bles Some areas have farm-gate traders who buy produce fromfarmers and sell in local markets often paying farmers slightly lessthan market rates but bearing the transport costs During high-production seasons some areas have long-distance traders whobuy at farm-gate to circumvent market fees but demand higherquality produce

Aggregators Aggregators are farmers who conduct transac-tions for Loop In the Buxar districtrsquos version of Loop they collectproduce from farmers transport it to markets conduct transactionsand send payments to the farmers

33 Vegetable Markets in BiharBiharrsquos vegetable markets vary widely in size and have heteroge-neous structures Most farmers sell at wholesale markets dealingin bulk to traders who shuttle the vegetables to other wholesalemarkets or to separate consumer-facing retail markets Some mar-kets are mixed wholesale and retail but many are distinctly one orthe other Prior to 2006 Bihar legally required many crops to besold through public auction at state-owned APMC markets beforereaching consumers Bihar abolished its APMCmarkets in 2006 andthe planned replacement system was never implemented leadingto a proliferation of private markets (which were illegal under theprevious law but nevertheless common) [20]

The Buxar district of Bihar where we conducted our interviewsis characterized by a smattering of small vegetable markets withno single large market that dominates the landscape All marketsare privately owned and the proprietors collect fees from traderscommission agents and farmers The vegetable markets teem with

Figure 2 Farmers stand by their vegetables inDharharamar-ket waiting to be approached by a trader

small buyers and sellers and we encountered no large corporateprocurement channels To our knowledge Bihar has no governmentservice for checking market prices None of the farms or marketswe visited had refrigeration facilities

While some markets have traders and commission agents whorent stalls in other markets farmers set vegetables on the groundand wait for traders to approach them (Figure 2) During busyhours traders move through the markets inspecting qualities andnegotiating prices There is no standardized quality grading systemLaborers hired by traders and commission agents load and unloadvehicles often handling hundreds of sacks every day each typicallyweighing about 60 kilograms (kg)

Prices Prices float up and down based on supply and demandare very difficult to predict and occasionally spike or crash withinminutes Rates are negotiated as a price-per-kg Most vegetablecrops have only a short window of 2ndash4 days when they can beharvested andmust be sold immediately to prevent spoilage leavingfarmers particularly vulnerable to short-term price shocks

Transportation For very small quantities farmers often carryvegetables to market on foot bicycle or motorbike When volumesare low some farmers farmers jointly hire vehicles and usually allaccompany the vehicle to market Farmers commonly hire trans-portation from owners and drivers of small- and medium-sizedvehicles (with capacity of 700ndash2500 kg) who commonly live aroundthe villages During high seasons many farmers have enough veg-etables to hire their own vehicles

Cuts for spoilage After weighing the vegetables traders andcommission agents generally cut the measurements to accountfor spoilage (eg a trader might cut 5 kg from a 70 kg bag andpay only for 65 kg) Vegetables that spoil faster receive a higherspoilage cut The amount cut also varies by market commissionagent and trader and such variations can impact farmersrsquo earningsignificantly

Gender Few women farmers buy or sell produce in the whole-sale markets in Buxar negotitations between agents traders andfarmers are largely handled by men Some regions in Bihar havemore women participating in markets than others several farmerstold us that poorer families are more likely to have women workingin the markets

User Research Towards a Market Information Service ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India

4 FARMER INTERVIEWSTo better understand the potential uses and limitations of an MIservice we interviewed farmers and commission agents about theirmarketing behaviors We chose Buxar as a case study because farm-ers in this area sell vegetables in several different small marketswhereas many other Bihari regions are dominated by a single enor-mous market

41 MethodsWe conducted semi-structured interviews with 11 farmers (denotedF1-F11) 6 Loop aggregators (who are also farmers denoted A1-A6) and 3 commission agents (denoted G1-G3) To capture diverseresponses we sampled farmers and aggregators from six differentvillages in the Buxar district of Bihar Five farmers were selectedrandomly from the Loop user database [F5 F6 F7 F8 F9] and theothers were recruited using convenience sampling we interviewedfarmers who were available when we arrived in their villages

All interviews were conducted in Hindi which was spoken andunderstood well by all interview subjects The interview team con-sisted of two people a regional manager for Loop who had priorworking relationships with the aggregators and spoke fluent Hindiand a research intern for Loop who understood basic Hindi Toavoid pressures and biases from ldquopublic performance interviewsrdquowe tried to hold one-on-one interviews in private settings but manysessions nevertheless drew groups of observers We audio-recordedall interviews except for those with commission agents who all de-clined to consent to recording likely from fear of damaging businessrelationships We took detailed notes for all interviews

We developed semi-structured interview questions in advanceinformed by prior informal conversations with farmers duringLooprsquos long-term field efforts Our interviews investigated a rangeof topics such as phone usage price checking tactics marketchanges over time relationships with different market actors ac-cess to credit and Loop service usage In most interviews thoughwe covered only subsets of the questions due to time constraintsAt the time of our interviews Loop had operated in Buxar for aboutfive months We asked these questions about marketing behaviorsbefore and after beginning Loop use and in the interest of general-izability this paper reports mostly on behaviors before Loop

We transcribed audio recordings and translated interview tran-scripts and field notes to English We reviewed and analyzed dataimmediately after each interview and the insights obtained fromour data analysis added more questions to each subsequent inter-view We subjected transcribed audio recordings and field notes tothematic analysis as outlined by Braun and Clarke [8] A subset ofauthors participated in the coding process they engaged in regulardiscussions and iterated on the codes until consensus was reachedWe now outline key themes that emerged from our analysis ofinterviews with farmers aggregators and commission agents

All of our participants weremen Although Loop has some femalefarmers most often men handle vegetable marketing in this regionMoreover the fact that all interviewers were male made it difficultto recruit female farmers in part due to cultural taboos that restrictwomen from conversing with unfamiliar men

Farmers were aged 20 to 61 (median age 365) and had educationlevels spanning from seven years of formal education to a masterrsquos

degree in Sanskrit (median nine years of education) Reported farmsizes ranged from 04 to 3 acres Most farmers owned land threereported having some land on lease All farmers grew vegetableson their land and some grew wheat seasonally [F1 F7] Whilesome farmers reported agriculture as their only source of income[F7 F9 F10] others also relied on earnings from dairy cattle [F5]remittances from sons working in Dubai [F5] and wages receivedfrom electrical work [F8] We neglected to collect demographicinformation from aggregators and commission agents

Four farmers had smartphones [F3 F4 F6 F8] five had featurephones [F2 F5 F7 F10 F11] and two had no phones but had regis-tered for Loop using their fathersrsquo numbers [F1 F9] All aggrega-tors were provided smartphones by Loop and all three commissionagents had smartphones Among the smartphone users some usedthe Internet and had accounts on Facebook and WhatsApp

42 Acquisition and Use of Price InformationMany participants reported that they andmany farmers in the Buxardistrict made calls over mobile phones to access price informationand used it to choose markets and negotiate better prices withtraders We also received reports of vegetable traders using mobilephones to buy and sell between markets Participants consistentlyreported that they never used SMS WhatsApp or Facebook forvegetable marketing We are not aware of any government helplineservice for vegetable prices in Bihar and participants consistentlydenied having heard of one [F5 A3 G1 G2 F8 F10]

Price information sources Most participants reported usingmobile phones to access prices by sending or receiving voice calls[F1 F4 F6 F8 F10 F11 A2 A4 A5 G1 G2 G3] An aggregator(A2) stated ldquoI call and check prices frequently Every day differentmarkets different timesrdquo While some participants checked pricesdaily [F11 A2 A4] others checked only on occasion [F2 F8]

Some farmers reported that they usually didnrsquot check pricesbefore going to market and had different reasons not to find itworthwhile [F2 F7 F8 F9 A3] For example F7 did not check pricesbefore going to his local market since he knew that it usually hadgood rates Similarly F3 did not check prices because he trustedthe local traders ldquoThey never quote too littlerdquo

Price sharing among farmers appeared to be widespread Manyinterviewees reported getting prices from others in their villagefrequently from in-person conversations [F1 F5 F6 F8 F10 F11 A1A2 A3 A4] For local markets at least this finding supports Burrelland Oregliarsquos claim that price information is often not scarce [9]

Many farmers reportedmaking phone calls to commission agentsto check prices [F2 F4 F6 F10 F11 A2 A4] All participatingcommission agents also reported getting regular calls from farmersSince commission agents act only as intermediaries and do notactually buy vegetables farmers reported calling them only tocheck market rates but not to pre-arrange deals A commissionagent G3 stated that ldquo20ndash25 farmers call me every dayrdquo during bothhigh and low production seasons and that farmers call to checkprices but never to discuss quantities Some farmers reported freelycalling several commission agents to compare prices [F4 F6 F11A2 A4] however F2 reported that many farmers in his villagewere constrained by their relationships with commission agentsand were obligated to bring produce if they called to check rates

ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India Ziegler Garg Tiwary Vashistha Heimerl

Farmers having stable relationships with commission agents told usthat the agents nearly always quoted accurate prices [F1 A2] Somefarmers reported that unfamiliar commission agents sometimesmislead farmers by quoting prices higher than the real prevailingprice to draw farmers to their market [F1 F2 F8 F10]

Some farmers reported calling both in-market and farm-gatetraders to check prices and make verbal deals to sell over the phoneagreeing on a quantity and a price [F8 F10 A5] Sometimes as in thecase of F8 traders also called farmers when they need vegetablesthey offer a price and tell farmers the quantity to bring

Market choices A few participants reported checking pricesat several markets before deciding where to take their vegetables[F10 F11 A2 A5] For example A5 shared that he sold his produceto retail traders at three local markets and called each market tocheck prices and make a verbal agreement about rates before goingSimilarly F10 reported calling a commission agent to check pricesat a distant large market to decide whether to go and then checkingprices with other agents after he arrived at the market

Negotiation Many farmers reported using price informationin negotiations comparing tradersrsquo rates against other traders andagainst market prices [F2 F6 F7 F8 F10 F11 A3 A4 A5] Forexample F7 stated ldquoWe negotiate with farm-gate traders based on theprevious dayrsquos market rates We offer 2 rupees above yesterdayrsquos rateand then the traders negotiate it down to 1 rupee above yesterdayrsquosraterdquo In another example F8 said that he called traders in the largefar-off Ara market to gain negotiating power against local traderssince rates were always |2ndash8 higher there

Arbitrage Commission agents reported that traders regularlyused mobile phones for arbitrage leveraging price information tobuy produce in one market and sell it in another For example G3shared that 5ndash6 outside traders came to his market daily duringpeak season and called in themornings to check prices Commissionagent G1 also reported calling other markets daily to check pricesand arrange deals with traders

43 Changes in Markets After Mobile PhonesSeveral participants reported significant changes in vegetable mar-kets since 2015 around the same time when mobile phones re-portedly became widespread in this area [G3 F11] These changesincluded big increases in the numbers of traders shifts in mar-ket activity and stabilization of prices Some participants directlyattributed the changes to mobile phones [F11 A2 G3] For exam-ple F11 stated ldquoEarlier before mobile phones were here not manytraders came But now that they know the rates they come here tobuy vegetablesrdquo Some participants noted that improvements in roadconnectivity around the same time also likely played an importantrole [F4 F11 A4] as well as shifts in trader patterns due a bridgebecoming impassable [F4 A4]

Many participants reported a large increase in the number oftraders since about 2015 [F4 F7 F11 A2 G3] For example A2 notedthat only 2ndash4 farm-gate traders used to come to his village dailyand the number had increased to about 15ndash20 at present Becauseof increased trader activity in local markets some farmers shiftedfrom selling in distant markets to local ones [F4 F7 A4] FarmerF7 had gone to the large distant Ara market until 3ndash4 years agosaying ldquoThe traders from Ara market are coming here now so there

is no point in going to Ara marketrdquo Conversely some other farmerswho had previously used only local markets began selling at distantmarkets because of new contacts with agents [F11]

We heard some reports of price stabilization since 2015 someparticipants reported fewer supply gluts and price crashes [A2G3] According to G3 ldquoBefore having mobile phones traders hadbetter margins because not many people had price information Noweverybody knows the pricesrdquo

Farmers told us about a variety of marketing heuristics they usedfor price discovery before the availability of mobile phones A2told us that he watched where other farmers sent vegetable trucksfrom his village and then sent his vegetables in other directions toavoid oversupply F4 stated that he went to far-off markets at thebeginning of a harvest of a particular crop because demand washigh then and supply low A2 (and several others) explained thatwhen the winds arose from the east and brought humidity for 2ndash3days production and quality increased traders knew this too sothese winds also brought the distance-traders to local markets

44 Non-Price Factors Impacting MarketingDecisions

Though price information was a key factor that influenced farmersrsquomarketing decisions participants also reported many other factorssuch as market capacity production volume time convenienceunfamiliarity with markets personal relationships connectionsrisk credit relationships and physical danger We now report onsome of these factors

Supply gluts and market capacity Participants reported thatmarkets occasionally became overwhelmed by large amounts ofproduce In such scenarios price crashes were common and farmerscould not sell any vegetables leading to severe losses Many farmersmentioned market capacity as an overriding concern the mostimportant factor for their profitability was their ability to sell theirentire stock of vegetables Some farmers expressed reluctance totry new markets due to fears of price crashes Since such crasheswere frequent in some small local markets during high productionseasons many farmers viewed either selling produce to farm-gatetraders or going to bigger far-away markets as safer options [F2F10 A4] A2 shared ldquoIf the market here has more harvest then wego to distant markets I have learned a lot by selling vegetables overthe years Letrsquos say I have 2 quintal [200kg] of tomatoes and if I getto know someone else has 5 quintal then I know that the rate fortomatoes is going to drop Itrsquos a competition cyclerdquo The capacity of amarket depends roughly on the number of traders In export-drivenmarkets outside traders come seasonally so capacity varies overthe year [F7 F8 A2]

Production volume and seasonalityWe observed that farm-ersrsquo marketing behaviors varied with their production volumeswhich depended on their farm sizes and seasonal changes Whenproduction was high volume often exceeded the capacity of localmarkets so farmers made the investment to try more distant mar-kets with higher capacities [A4 F8 F9] When volume was verylow some farmers did not find it worthwhile to put effort into mar-keting so they opted for convenience they stuck to local marketssold to local traders or simply sent their produce to market alongwith another farmer [F3 F5 A3 F6] F8 told us ldquoI never make any

User Research Towards a Market Information Service ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India

decision on prices When the volume is low I go to Dumri marketwhen itrsquos high I go to Nayabhojpur marketrdquo F5 a farmer with smallvolume regularly took a two-hour train to Patna the capital city tosell his vegetables in a retail market because it was too difficult tosell small quantities in wholesale ones Vehicle capacity presentedanother constraint during peak season insufficient vehicles wereavailable for hire so vegetables went to waste [F10]

Time and convenienceMarket trips could be immensely time-consuming for farmers and one of the biggest barriers to usingalternative markets was simply that it took too long During highproduction seasons farmers commonly went to market every 1ndash3 days [F2 F6 F8] Traveling to distant markets was reported tobe a major time investment some farmers reported making tripswith 2ndash4 hours of transport time each way [F2 F5] and sometimestraveling the whole night [F4 A2]

Once at the market they often waited for traders to buy theirproduce which on good days took 30 to 60 minutes [F1 F6] How-ever during high production season the sales often took muchlonger Farmers reported spending 3ndash5 hours to sell their produce[F6 F8] F1 said ldquoWhen there is a lot of harvest sometimes it takesthe whole day to sellrdquo

Some farmers reported selling to farm-gate traders because ofconvenience Farm-gate traders often supplied labor to handle thecutting packing and other processing this saved the time andhassle of going to the market [F3 F5 F10] F3 explained ldquoNow thatthese people do it I just give it to them I could not manage witheverything I am growing oldrdquo Many farmers also cited convenienceand time savings as reasons for using Loop [F3 F5 F7 F8 F9]

Unfamiliarity with newmarkets Farmers reported that lackof familiarity with new markets was a significant barrier againsttrying them Diversity in market structures and operations madeselling in a new market a daunting task and missteps could lead tobig losses For example A6 shared why some farmers were hesitantto try new markets ldquoIf farmers have to go to a distant market on ahot day and the stock is unprepared they might reach there late Ifthey reach late the market will be down by then Then who will taketheir stock He [the agent] will say lsquoyou have come so latersquo rdquo

Several farmers stressed the importance of gathering informationabout a new market before bringing vegetables there to sell such aswhich commission agents were good howmuch volume the marketcould handle who the major traders were whether vegetables camefrom outside which vegetables sold well and the peak operatingtimes throughout the year [F1 F4 A2 A4 A6] When asked whatadvice he would offer to other farmers A2 replied ldquoThe farmersneed to go to the markets and study the customers prices and qualityof harvest Without studying and experiencing it one cannot learnrdquoHe later told us ldquoThey should have a trusting relationship with thecommission agents and should know about the marketrsquos operationssuch as rates and processes all these things so they can handle themarketrsquos intricacies and fetch good prices Farmers should be informedabout the markets well before going If farmers are not well-informedand only make decisions on the basis of prices it will not be goodbecause every market has different operationsrdquo

In-market connections Participants told us that having con-nections in a market made selling produce much easier by providinginformation and help [F1 F4 A2 A4 A6] We heard several storiesof farmers trying new markets for the first time because they had

formed a connection with a commission agent [F1 F2 F8 F11] F11told us that he had never sold at any distant markets before gettinga mobile phone and he recently started going to the distant Bhastiand Bharadpur markets after getting phone numbers of commissionagents there from a local trader Similarly F2 tried going to thefar-off Sikanderpur market after meeting a Sikanderpur commissionagent who had come to his village Apart from just informationconnections were valuable for other support During our interviewof F1 another farmer interjected ldquoWhen we go to Buxar market weknow the commission agents If they are taking money then we canfight for our money because we know them With a different marketwe donrsquot know the commission agents we donrsquot have any power toexercise there So we donrsquot prefer those marketsrdquo

Relationships with commission agents Some farmers re-ported long-lasting relationships with commission agents onlyselling with 1 or 2 consistently [F1 F2] In these relationships com-mission agents often expected loyalty since collecting big volumesfrom many farmers was important for attracting traders F4 toldus that a farmer changing agents created a bad reputation in thatmarket and agents were less likely to extend credit or value thatfarmersrsquo business ldquoAll goes wrong if you keep switching agentsrdquo

Many interview subjects stressed the importance of trust be-tween farmers and commission agents [F1 F2 F4 A2 G1 G2 G3]because they are mutually dependent on each other to maintaintheir reputations exchange accurate information and uphold dealsCommission agents told us about their efforts to build relationshipswith farmers such as calling to ask about their families [G3] andgiving farmers gifts like tea Sprite and flashlights [G2]

Sometimes despite these relationships with commission agentsfarmers sold to other traders under the table For example F1 re-ported that sometimes traders would wait on the road outside themarket and approach farmers before they entered to avoid payingthe agentsrsquo commissions

Other farmers reported no such commitments to commissionagents and sold freely via different traders and agents based on priceonly [F7 F8 F9 A5] We heard many responses like ldquoWhicheveragent is giving good prices we prefer to go with themrsquo [F9] A5 toldus assertively ldquoWe want the price we donrsquot want a relationshiprdquo

Risk We encountered different attitudes towards risk-takingduring our interviews We speculate that wealthier farmers havebetter access to markets because they are more comfortable takingrisks with a financial safety cushion to fall on when things do notwork out Poor farmers are probably more constrained more oftenchoosing what they perceive as the safest option

Some farmers discussed price crashes frankly seeming to acceptthem as a part of doing business [F4 F5 F6 F8 A2] For exampleF5 stated ldquoYeah I have had to return home with the stock If today Iget a bad rate I might get a good rate tomorrowrdquo

Farmers F1 and F2 on the other hand appeared much morehesitant to take risks When asked why they seldom tried marketsother than Buxar they expressed concerns about spending toomuchto go to those markets without any guarantee that they would getgood rates and they recounted stories about visiting new marketsin the past and finding worse prices

The infrastructure of vegetable marketing in Bihar distributesrisk between all the different actors Commission agents and tradersabsorb some of the farmersrsquo risk A main benefit of selling through

ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India Ziegler Garg Tiwary Vashistha Heimerl

commission agents is that they usually pay farmers cash immedi-ately when the produce is sold to a trader Payments from tradersare sometimes delayed [F4 F9] since traders send cash throughintermediaries or pay only after selling the crops at another marketwhich usually takes 1ndash2 days but can take much longer when pricescrash [G1 G3] Commission agents in this way insulate farmersfrom price crash risks Local farm-gate traders often pay less thanmarket rates but in return they bare the transportation cost andthe risk of price fluctuations F3 told us ldquoI am too old to take care ofthe market things traders are a luxury because they take the riskrdquo

Credit After taking loans from commission agents at plantingtime some farmers were obligated to sell their vegetables throughthose agents [F1 F4 G2] Commission agent G2 explained thatwhen selling vegetables for farmers who have credit from him hewithheld |1ndash2 per kg of the payment for 2ndash3 days and then paid therest to the farmer only when he returned to sell more vegetables F4told us that commission agents sometimes offered him credit buthe refused so that he was not obligated to sell his produce throughthem All three commission agents who we interviewed insistedthat they did not charge interest on loans to farmers instead theyused the loans as a way to create business F1 however told us thathe payed |20 per |100 per month in interest to his agent

From our interviews the prevalence of these credit relationshipsbetween farmers and commission agents was unclear Only oneparticipant (F1) reported taking credit from agents However com-mission agent G2 told us that he gave credit to about 20 of every 100farmers he dealt with usually in amounts of |10000ndash|20000 F2told us that his commission agent gave him |500ndash|2000 advancesfor personal expenses but not larger loans Participants reportedhaving access to various other sources of credit such as local mon-eylenders [F6 F8] relatives and neighbors [F7 F10] None of thefarmers reported getting credit from vegetable traders

Danger and Bribes The peak activity of most big markets is inthe early morning and when the market is far away farmers haveto travel at night to reach in time Many farmers in our study areaexpressed reluctance to travel at night because of danger Somefarmers worried about getting robbed [F6] F2 and F10 stoppedgoing to distant markets because of police bribes F10 shared ldquoTherewas a problem with the police that resulted in a hassle to go there Onthe way there are two police vans by the road in the night checkpointand they ask for |200ndash500 There are about 10ndash15 such checkpointsYou end up giving about |3000 for the vehicle and about |1500 tothe police so any difference in market prices is a loss to usrdquo

45 Summary of InterviewsParticipants reported diverse marketing strategies some farmersregularly called connections to sell vegetables at many differentmarkets while others were bound to a specific commission agentin their local market or opted for the convenience of local tradersWe recorded reports of many but not all farmers using price in-formation to choose markets and negotiate with traders as well astraders using mobile phones for arbitrage between markets

We collected anecdotal reports of changes in markets aroundthe same time that mobile phones became widespread in the areaincluding increased numbers of traders shifts in market activity

and stabilization of prices Other factors influencing farmersrsquo mar-keting decisions included market capacity production volume timeunfamiliarity personal relationships risk credit and danger

5 MARKET INFO APP PAPER PROTOTYPESTo explore which market-access factors could be addressable withanMI service we next conducted a cognitive walkthrough and light-weight usability study of a series of low-fidelity system prototypesbuilt off of Loop and using Loop aggregators

As seen in our interviews and demonstrated by other Loop de-ployments Loop farmers often accessed previously-impracticalmarkets due to time savings and the pooling of transport costs Wethus focused on the use case of farmers considering new unfamiliarmarkets and the subset of market-access barriers that we believedto be most addressable via an information service including marketcontacts price volatility market capacity and transportation

51 MethodsWe designed four iterations of paper prototypes and tested theprototypes with nine Loop aggregators Sessions were conductedin the Buxar and Samastipur districts of Bihar Most participantswere selected using a convenience sampling methodology for be-ing present while conducting other Loop-related business a fewwere selected for being engaged Loop users Participants typicallyhad more education than other farmers all were literate and hadexperience using smartphones Many participants already had ex-perience with RampD processes having previously participated inexperimental Loop pilots

For testing we asked participants to imagine a hypothetical situa-tion in which they had to choose between unfamiliar markets to selltheir vegetables and navigate the paper prototypes withmocked-updata to find information and make a decision We carefully observedparticipants while they interacted with the prototypes and askedthem to speak their thought processes aloud Using the prototypesas a conversation piece we held open-ended conversations withthe participants about how to improve the designs and what otherfeatures they would like

Since prior work has noted high levels of response bias whenevaluating prototypes in HCI4D contexts [2 12 28] we used theldquosocial proofrdquo method to prime participants finding it surprisinglyeffective for soliciting critical feedback [34] We told participants atthe onset of the evaluation sessions that previous participants hadfound the screens confusing did not understand what the buttonsdid and did not find the features useful

52 FindingsHere we present our results that suggest avenues for addressingsome of the market-access barriers uncovered in our user research

Price stability andmarket capacity To help users know howstable or volatile prices are at a particular market we experimentedwith interfaces for showing historic prices We asked four aggrega-tors how many days of past prices they wanted to see and everyparticipant consistently answered that they wanted to see pricesonly for the last 2ndash4 daysParticipants reported that showing moredates would be unnecessary they could not predict future pricesfrom past prices and assessing price stability was the only use

User Research Towards a Market Information Service ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India

(a) Graph confusing (b) Dots unhelpful (c) Preferred

Figure 3 Presentations of past market prices to show mar-ket volatility All users preferred 3c (Figures are translatedfrom Hindi to English for this paper)

Graphs and visualizations are frequently used to show historicprices in many other contexts but we found them not to be useful inthis application Bar graphs (Figure 3a) confused participants othervisualizations (3b) were easier to understand but participants stillreported finding them unhelpful and unnecessarily complicated Allparticipants preferred the simplicity of seeing the prices in tabularform with no visualization (3c)

To communicate market capacity we showed screens labelingmarkets as lsquobig marketrsquo lsquomedium marketrsquo and lsquosmall marketrsquo show-ing these labels for multiple markets together so users could usefamiliar markets as references for unfamiliar ones (Figure 4a) Mostusers responded positively to this feature but we received feedbackthat some market sizes varied by season and that we should notewhich markets had outside traders who came seasonally

Transport costs During the usability tests with hypotheticalscenarios we asked users to find the market with the best payoffafter factoring in transportation costs We watched several usersstruggle to calculate payoff estimations having to keep track ofmany different numbers We considered awkward payoff-calculatorinterfaces that required significant data entry from users but wefound it more effective to simply show the cost of sending a pickuptruck to each market side-by-side with the prices (Figure 4a) Sinceonly one or two crops usually dominate a dayrsquos market trip thismock gave users the necessary information conveniently in onescreen Farmers commonly hire many different types of vehicleswith different costs but we opted to show only the cost of a pickuptruck on this screen because for distant markets it is rarely cost-effective to send any vehicle smaller than a pickup

Contacts Since many farmers cited the lack of contacts as abarrier to exploring newmarkets we showed a simple contacts pagefor commission agents at each market (see Figure 4b) We askedparticipants how they would choose which agent to contact anddiscussed options such as a rating system for agents or showingbiographical information such as vegetable specialties Several toldus that when scoping out a new market they looked for agentswith the most customers since that meant they were likely to begood agents Some participants stated that they would simply preferLoop to recommend a commission agent to them and that theywould trust the recommendation In addition to contact details ofcommission agents several participants told us that they wouldlike contacts of Loop farmers who frequented other markets sothey could learn from each other

We learned through this exercise that some factorsmdashincludingprice volatility transportation and payoff calculation and agent

(a) Mock prices screen forone crop showing marketsizes and transport costs

(b) Mock screen showingcommission agents for amarket

Figure 4 Example screen mocks shown to participants

contactsmdashare addressable through a mobile app or similar serviceHowever other important information for vegetable marketing iscomplex and difficult to capture in the structures of an MI serviceeg specific quality and processing information for each crop ateach market or the fact that one particular market shifts to nighttime for several months during the winter These factors may bebetter addressable through other media

6 DISCUSSIONWe set out to understand the potential benefits and limits of a mar-ket information service in Buxar Bihar Results from our interviewsand prototype exercises show how the arrival of mobile phoneshas brought changes to Buxarrsquos vegetable markets and examinethe many factors that influence farmersrsquo marketing behaviors Weend with a discussion of design considerations for MI services andother strategies to address market-access barriers

61 Information Asymmetry and ScarcityConsistent with the theories of information asymmetry and infor-mation scarcity we found evidence in the Buxar district showingthat conditions seemed favorable for improved market efficiencydue to better availability of price information Farmers frequentlyused their mobile phones to get price information from differentmarkets some using the prices to choose a market and negotiatewith traders After the widespread adoption of mobile phones in thearea farmers reported market changes consistent with the informa-tion scarcity theory with more traders moving vegetables betweenmarkets and fewer price crashes We also heard reports of farmersusing price information to negotiate higher prices from traders con-sistent with the information asymmetry theory Especially whencompared to other research that did not find such conditions inother locations [9 29] our work reinforces the importance of local-ization in the studies of MI services

62 Usefulness of an MI ServiceMany farmers used phone calls to access prices and other marketinformation from their social connections Would designing a dedi-cated MI service offer substantially more benefits to farmers than

ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India Ziegler Garg Tiwary Vashistha Heimerl

simply having mobile phones alone Our findings indicate severalpotential benefits in favor of the former Marketing is hugely time-consuming for farmers and an MI service could eliminate the needto make calls to multiple markets Not every farmer has marketconnections for checking prices over the phone and an MI servicecould reduce this barrier An MI service could also help to providediscretion and avoid social obligations for farmers such as F1 whoreported feeling obligated to sell to a certain commission agent if hecalled that agent to check the prices Commission agents sometimesquote misleading rates to farmers but an MI service could providemore reliable information

However many barriers to market access are simply not address-able by an information system like as danger time and credit Forsome other factorsmdashlike price volatility and unfamiliaritymdashan infor-mation system could provide some assistance but the complexityof vegetable marketing presents challenges

63 Future Work and Design ConsiderationsApart from the information scarcity of prices we demonstratedthrough our interviews the many other barriers that keep farm-ers from accessing other markets such as personal relationshipsprice volatility physical danger credit time unfamiliarity and lackof marketing skills Although we probed some of these barrierswith early-stage prototypes much more work is needed to evalu-ate which barriers are actually addressable using information andcommunication technologies

From our interview and prototyping work we are optimistic thatincluding some non-price information into an MI service could behelpful in this region We found positive reception for indicationsof market capacity price variability and contacts of commissionagents and traders at unfamiliar markets Although the prototypingexercises were rewarding to examine factors and their presenta-tions we will be able to answer many questions only by testingwith full implementations For example although many farmersindicated they would be comfortable calling unfamiliar traders andcommission agents in new markets only a deployment could revealwhether farmers and aggregators would indeed use this feature

We found that farmers often share prices around their villagesand make joint marketing decisions However most existing MI ser-vices target individuals There is an opportunity for more researchabout collaborative uses of market information

Especially because fewwomen can be found in Buxarrsquos wholesalevegetable markets additional work is needed to better understandthe roles and needs of women engaged in vegetable marketing

Our participants showed striking discrepancies in marketingskills some were incredibly savvy experienced marketers whogave us many tips and leveraged connections at dozens of differentmarkets many other farmers were inexperienced constrained andrisk-averse Because of the richness and complexity of vegetablemarketing strategies gaps in these skills are probably not well ad-dressable by a market information service and better suited to othermedia For example it may be fruitful to draw upon Vishwanathanet alrsquos work on consumer marketplace skills [35] They developeda participatory in-person market literacy course in south Indiathat covers topics like checking weights understanding price no-tations developing relationships with merchants and customers

basic accounting and avoiding credit and associated costs Alongthis vein some Loop farmers have suggested organizing lsquofield tripsrsquoto different markets to learn how they work Similarly multimediaapproachesmdashsuch as mFarmrsquos experiments in using community-ledvideo education to help users learn to use their MI service [36]mdashcould be expanded to cover more marketing skills

64 Study BiasesOur sample was not random and not fully representative of thearea All farmers we interviewed used the Loop service and likelyhad some different characteristics relative to non-users Notablyour sample included no women All participating farmers also usedLoop as a source of income and they likely did not want to sayanything that could damage that relationship

65 Ongoing Work by LoopAt the time of writing Loop has started early-stage pilots of anSMS- and IVR-based market price service and trials of a smartphoneapplication built from our prototypes (Section 5) Through theseprototypes we hope to build an MI service that can change themarketing behaviors of Loop farmers solicit farmer feedback aboutfeatures and further develop our user interfaces

Loop has other ongoing projects to address market-access barri-ers outside the reach of an information system One project coordi-nates multiple villages for more cost-effective transportation Toaddress market unfamiliarity Loop has a pilot to explore how partic-ipatory user-generated videos [17] could be leveraged to familiarizeusers with aspects of different markets for example demonstratingthe best way to cut cauliflower for a particular destination Ongo-ing pilots with digital payments allow farmers to send produce todistant markets without the risk and delay of sending cash back

7 CONCLUSIONWe have shown that farmers in Buxar commonly use mobile phonesto acquire price information for bargaining and market choice sug-gesting the usefulness of a market information service to reduceinformation scarcity and information asymmetry We have reportedfactors that limit the usefulness of market price information includ-ing time and convenience unfamiliarity with new markets lackof connections personal relationships price crashes productionvolume attitudes towards risk credit relationships and physicaldanger and we have presented further results from exploratoryuser studies for addressing specific barriers to market access

8 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSThe authors gratefully acknowledge the entire Loop team especiallythose members who contributed to this project Aditya Sethi EricaArya Ashok Kumar Bipin Raj Divish Gupta Abhishek Lodha andS Kaushik We are thankful to our anonymous reviewers who pro-vided important feedback and to Ishan Sapru Chrungoo KonarakRatnakar and Bharat Agarwal who transcribed and translated in-terviews We are especially grateful to the farmers who generouslycontributed their time effort and hospitality

User Research Towards a Market Information Service ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India

REFERENCES[1] RML Agtech 2018 FarmBee httpsfarmbeein Accessed 2018-07-18[2] Yaw Anokwa Thomas N Smyth Divya Ramachandran Jahanzeb Sherwani Yael

Schwartzman Rowena Luk Melissa Ho Neema Moraveji and Brian DeRenzi2009 Stories from the field Reflections on HCI4D experiences InformationTechnologies amp International Development 5 4 (2009)

[3] GSM Association 2013 Mobile Market Information for Agri VAS Operators AQuick Start Guide

[4] World Bank 2012 Information and communications for development 2012Maximizing mobile httpgoworldbankorg0J2CTQTYP0 Accessed 2018-07-18

[5] Heike Baumuumlller 2015 Enhancing smallholder market participation throughmobile phone-enabled services The case of M-Farm in Kenya The ElectronicJournal of Information Systems in Developing Countries 68 (2015) 1ndash16 Issue 6

[6] Heike Baumuumlller 2017 The LittleWe Know An Exploratory Literature Review onthe Utility of Mobile Phone-Enabled Services for Smallholder Farmers Journal ofInternational Development 30 1 (2017) 134ndash154 httpsdoiorg101002jid3314

[7] Raymond A Boadi Richard Boateng Robert Hinson and Robert A Opoku2007 Preliminary Insights into M-commerce Adoption in Ghana InformationDevelopment 23 4 (2007) 253ndash265 httpsdoiorg1011770266666907084761

[8] Virginia Braun and Victoria Clarke 2006 Using thematic analysis in psychologyQualitative Research in Psychology 3 2 (2006) 77ndash101 httpsdoiorg1011911478088706qp063oa

[9] Jenna Burrell and Elisa Oreglia 2015 The myth of market price informationmobile phones and the application of economic knowledge in ICTD Economyand Society 44 2 (2015) 271ndash292 httpsdoiorg1010800308514720151013742

[10] Adriana Camacho and Emily Conover 2010 The Impact of Receiving Price andClimate Information in the Agricultural Sector SSRN Electronic Journal (2010)httpsdoiorg102139ssrn1755057

[11] Pierre Courtois and Julie Subervie 2014 Farmer Bargaining Power and MarketInformation Services American Journal of Agricultural Economics 97 3 (2014)953ndash977 httpsdoiorg101093ajaeaau051

[12] Nicola Dell Vidya Vaidyanathan Indrani Medhi Edward Cutrell and WilliamThies 2012 Yours is Better Participant Response Bias in HCI Proceedings ofthe 2012 ACM annual conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - CHI12 (2012) httpsdoiorg10114522076762208589

[13] Esoko 2018 Mobile and Web Apps for Data Collection and Communicationhttpswwwesokocom Accessed 2018-07-18

[14] Marcel Fafchamps and Ruth Vargas Hill 2008 Price Transmission and TraderEntry in Domestic Commodity Markets Economic Development and CulturalChange 56 4 (2008) 729ndash766 httpsdoiorg101086588155

[15] Marcel Fafchamps and Bart Minten 2012 Impact of SMS-Based AgriculturalInformation on Indian Farmers The World Bank Economic Review 26 3 (Jan 2012)383ndash414 httpsdoiorg101093wberlhr056

[16] NYU Center for Technology and Economic Development 2013 Market Informa-tion Systems for Rural Farmers Evaluation Of Esoko MIS ndash Year 1 Results (Mar2013) httpwwwnyuctedorgarchives1108

[17] Rikin Gandhi Rajesh Veeraraghavan Kentaro Toyama and Vanaja Ramprasad2007 Digital Green Participatory video for agricultural extension 2007 Interna-tional Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Develop-ment (2007) httpsdoiorg101109ictd20074937388

[18] M Sirajul Islam and Ake Groumlnlund 2010 An agricultural market informationservice (AMIS) in Bangladesh evaluating a mobile phone based e-service in arural context Information Development 26 4 (2010) 289ndash302 httpsdoiorg10

11770266666910385556[19] R Jensen 2007 The Digital Provide Information (Technology) Market Perfor-

mance and Welfare in the South Indian Fisheries Sector The Quarterly Journalof Economics 122 3 (Jan 2007) 879ndash924 httpsdoiorg101162qjec1223879

[20] Devesh Kapur andMekhala Krishnamurthy 2014 UnderstandingMandis MarketTowns and the Dynamics of Indiarsquos Rural and Urban Transformations Center forthe Advanced Study of India Working Papers Series F-35007-INC-1 (2014)

[21] Sriganesh Lokanathan Harsha De Silva and Iran Fernando 2011 2 Price trans-parency in agricultural produce markets Sri Lanka Strengthening Rural Liveli-hoods (2011) 15ndash32 httpsdoiorg1033629781780440361002

[22] Loop 2018 Loop Connecting Farmers to Markets httpsloopapporg Accessed2018-07-18

[23] M-Farm Ltd 2018 mFarm httpsmfarmcoke Accessed 2018-07-18[24] Pierre R Meacuterel Richard J Sexton and Aya Suzuki 2009 Optimal Invest-

ment in Transportation Infrastructure When Middlemen Have Market Power ADeveloping-Country Analysis American Journal of Agricultural Economics 91 2(2009) 462ndash476 httpsdoiorg101111j1467-8276200801245x

[25] Eduardo Nakasone 2013 The role of price information in agricultural marketsexperimental evidence from rural Peru In Agricultural amp Applied EconomicsAssociationrsquos 2013 AAEA amp CAES Joint Annual Meeting

[26] Ministry of Health and Government of India Family Welfare 2017 NationalFamily Health Survey 2015-2016 (NFHS-4)

[27] Census of India 2011 List of states with Population Sex Ratio and LiteracyCensus 2011 httpwwwcensus2011coinstatesphp

[28] Martin T Orne 1962 On the social psychology of the psychological experi-ment With particular reference to demand characteristics and their implicationsAmerican Psychologist 17 11 (1962) 776ndash783 httpsdoiorg101037h0043424

[29] Janaki Srinivasan and Jenna Burrell 2013 Revisiting the fishers of Kerala IndiaProceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Information and Commu-nication Technologies and Development Full Papers - ICTD 13 - volume 1 (2013)httpsdoiorg10114525166042516618

[30] George J Stigler 1976 The Economics of Information Lecture Notes in Economicsand Mathematical Systems Mathematical Models in Marketing (1976) 272ndash275httpsdoiorg101007978-3-642-51565-1_86

[31] Joseph E Stiglitz 1989 Chapter 13 Imperfect information in the product marketHandbook of Industrial Organization Handbook of Industrial Organization Volume1 (1989) 769ndash847 httpsdoiorg101016s1573-448x(89)01016-2

[32] Mark Tran 2013 Cassava on eBay M-Farm SMS helps Kenyarsquos farmersget better prices The Guardian (Jul 2013) httpswwwtheguardiancomglobal-development2013jul04m-farm-kenya-food-security

[33] USAID 2013 An Assessment of Market Information Systems in East Africa(May 2013)

[34] Aditya Vashistha Fabian Okeke Richard Anderson and Nicola Dell 2018 rsquoYouCan Always Do Betterrsquo The Impact of Social Proof on Participant Response BiasProceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems -CHI 18 (2018) httpsdoiorg10114531735743174126

[35] Madhubalan Viswanathan S Gajendiran and R Venkatesan 2008 Understandingand Enabling Marketplace Literacy in Subsistence Contexts The developmentof a consumer and entrepreneurial literacy educational program in South IndiaInternational Journal of Educational Development 28 (05 2008) 300ndash319 httpsdoiorg101016jijedudev200705004

[36] SusanWyche and Charles Steinfield 2015 Why Dont Farmers Use Cell Phones toAccess Market Prices Technology Affordances and Barriers to Market Informa-tion Services Adoption in Rural Kenya Information Technology for Development22 2 (2015) 320ndash333 httpsdoiorg1010800268110220151048184

User Research Towards a Market Information Service ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India

4 FARMER INTERVIEWSTo better understand the potential uses and limitations of an MIservice we interviewed farmers and commission agents about theirmarketing behaviors We chose Buxar as a case study because farm-ers in this area sell vegetables in several different small marketswhereas many other Bihari regions are dominated by a single enor-mous market

41 MethodsWe conducted semi-structured interviews with 11 farmers (denotedF1-F11) 6 Loop aggregators (who are also farmers denoted A1-A6) and 3 commission agents (denoted G1-G3) To capture diverseresponses we sampled farmers and aggregators from six differentvillages in the Buxar district of Bihar Five farmers were selectedrandomly from the Loop user database [F5 F6 F7 F8 F9] and theothers were recruited using convenience sampling we interviewedfarmers who were available when we arrived in their villages

All interviews were conducted in Hindi which was spoken andunderstood well by all interview subjects The interview team con-sisted of two people a regional manager for Loop who had priorworking relationships with the aggregators and spoke fluent Hindiand a research intern for Loop who understood basic Hindi Toavoid pressures and biases from ldquopublic performance interviewsrdquowe tried to hold one-on-one interviews in private settings but manysessions nevertheless drew groups of observers We audio-recordedall interviews except for those with commission agents who all de-clined to consent to recording likely from fear of damaging businessrelationships We took detailed notes for all interviews

We developed semi-structured interview questions in advanceinformed by prior informal conversations with farmers duringLooprsquos long-term field efforts Our interviews investigated a rangeof topics such as phone usage price checking tactics marketchanges over time relationships with different market actors ac-cess to credit and Loop service usage In most interviews thoughwe covered only subsets of the questions due to time constraintsAt the time of our interviews Loop had operated in Buxar for aboutfive months We asked these questions about marketing behaviorsbefore and after beginning Loop use and in the interest of general-izability this paper reports mostly on behaviors before Loop

We transcribed audio recordings and translated interview tran-scripts and field notes to English We reviewed and analyzed dataimmediately after each interview and the insights obtained fromour data analysis added more questions to each subsequent inter-view We subjected transcribed audio recordings and field notes tothematic analysis as outlined by Braun and Clarke [8] A subset ofauthors participated in the coding process they engaged in regulardiscussions and iterated on the codes until consensus was reachedWe now outline key themes that emerged from our analysis ofinterviews with farmers aggregators and commission agents

All of our participants weremen Although Loop has some femalefarmers most often men handle vegetable marketing in this regionMoreover the fact that all interviewers were male made it difficultto recruit female farmers in part due to cultural taboos that restrictwomen from conversing with unfamiliar men

Farmers were aged 20 to 61 (median age 365) and had educationlevels spanning from seven years of formal education to a masterrsquos

degree in Sanskrit (median nine years of education) Reported farmsizes ranged from 04 to 3 acres Most farmers owned land threereported having some land on lease All farmers grew vegetableson their land and some grew wheat seasonally [F1 F7] Whilesome farmers reported agriculture as their only source of income[F7 F9 F10] others also relied on earnings from dairy cattle [F5]remittances from sons working in Dubai [F5] and wages receivedfrom electrical work [F8] We neglected to collect demographicinformation from aggregators and commission agents

Four farmers had smartphones [F3 F4 F6 F8] five had featurephones [F2 F5 F7 F10 F11] and two had no phones but had regis-tered for Loop using their fathersrsquo numbers [F1 F9] All aggrega-tors were provided smartphones by Loop and all three commissionagents had smartphones Among the smartphone users some usedthe Internet and had accounts on Facebook and WhatsApp

42 Acquisition and Use of Price InformationMany participants reported that they andmany farmers in the Buxardistrict made calls over mobile phones to access price informationand used it to choose markets and negotiate better prices withtraders We also received reports of vegetable traders using mobilephones to buy and sell between markets Participants consistentlyreported that they never used SMS WhatsApp or Facebook forvegetable marketing We are not aware of any government helplineservice for vegetable prices in Bihar and participants consistentlydenied having heard of one [F5 A3 G1 G2 F8 F10]

Price information sources Most participants reported usingmobile phones to access prices by sending or receiving voice calls[F1 F4 F6 F8 F10 F11 A2 A4 A5 G1 G2 G3] An aggregator(A2) stated ldquoI call and check prices frequently Every day differentmarkets different timesrdquo While some participants checked pricesdaily [F11 A2 A4] others checked only on occasion [F2 F8]

Some farmers reported that they usually didnrsquot check pricesbefore going to market and had different reasons not to find itworthwhile [F2 F7 F8 F9 A3] For example F7 did not check pricesbefore going to his local market since he knew that it usually hadgood rates Similarly F3 did not check prices because he trustedthe local traders ldquoThey never quote too littlerdquo

Price sharing among farmers appeared to be widespread Manyinterviewees reported getting prices from others in their villagefrequently from in-person conversations [F1 F5 F6 F8 F10 F11 A1A2 A3 A4] For local markets at least this finding supports Burrelland Oregliarsquos claim that price information is often not scarce [9]

Many farmers reportedmaking phone calls to commission agentsto check prices [F2 F4 F6 F10 F11 A2 A4] All participatingcommission agents also reported getting regular calls from farmersSince commission agents act only as intermediaries and do notactually buy vegetables farmers reported calling them only tocheck market rates but not to pre-arrange deals A commissionagent G3 stated that ldquo20ndash25 farmers call me every dayrdquo during bothhigh and low production seasons and that farmers call to checkprices but never to discuss quantities Some farmers reported freelycalling several commission agents to compare prices [F4 F6 F11A2 A4] however F2 reported that many farmers in his villagewere constrained by their relationships with commission agentsand were obligated to bring produce if they called to check rates

ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India Ziegler Garg Tiwary Vashistha Heimerl

Farmers having stable relationships with commission agents told usthat the agents nearly always quoted accurate prices [F1 A2] Somefarmers reported that unfamiliar commission agents sometimesmislead farmers by quoting prices higher than the real prevailingprice to draw farmers to their market [F1 F2 F8 F10]

Some farmers reported calling both in-market and farm-gatetraders to check prices and make verbal deals to sell over the phoneagreeing on a quantity and a price [F8 F10 A5] Sometimes as in thecase of F8 traders also called farmers when they need vegetablesthey offer a price and tell farmers the quantity to bring

Market choices A few participants reported checking pricesat several markets before deciding where to take their vegetables[F10 F11 A2 A5] For example A5 shared that he sold his produceto retail traders at three local markets and called each market tocheck prices and make a verbal agreement about rates before goingSimilarly F10 reported calling a commission agent to check pricesat a distant large market to decide whether to go and then checkingprices with other agents after he arrived at the market

Negotiation Many farmers reported using price informationin negotiations comparing tradersrsquo rates against other traders andagainst market prices [F2 F6 F7 F8 F10 F11 A3 A4 A5] Forexample F7 stated ldquoWe negotiate with farm-gate traders based on theprevious dayrsquos market rates We offer 2 rupees above yesterdayrsquos rateand then the traders negotiate it down to 1 rupee above yesterdayrsquosraterdquo In another example F8 said that he called traders in the largefar-off Ara market to gain negotiating power against local traderssince rates were always |2ndash8 higher there

Arbitrage Commission agents reported that traders regularlyused mobile phones for arbitrage leveraging price information tobuy produce in one market and sell it in another For example G3shared that 5ndash6 outside traders came to his market daily duringpeak season and called in themornings to check prices Commissionagent G1 also reported calling other markets daily to check pricesand arrange deals with traders

43 Changes in Markets After Mobile PhonesSeveral participants reported significant changes in vegetable mar-kets since 2015 around the same time when mobile phones re-portedly became widespread in this area [G3 F11] These changesincluded big increases in the numbers of traders shifts in mar-ket activity and stabilization of prices Some participants directlyattributed the changes to mobile phones [F11 A2 G3] For exam-ple F11 stated ldquoEarlier before mobile phones were here not manytraders came But now that they know the rates they come here tobuy vegetablesrdquo Some participants noted that improvements in roadconnectivity around the same time also likely played an importantrole [F4 F11 A4] as well as shifts in trader patterns due a bridgebecoming impassable [F4 A4]

Many participants reported a large increase in the number oftraders since about 2015 [F4 F7 F11 A2 G3] For example A2 notedthat only 2ndash4 farm-gate traders used to come to his village dailyand the number had increased to about 15ndash20 at present Becauseof increased trader activity in local markets some farmers shiftedfrom selling in distant markets to local ones [F4 F7 A4] FarmerF7 had gone to the large distant Ara market until 3ndash4 years agosaying ldquoThe traders from Ara market are coming here now so there

is no point in going to Ara marketrdquo Conversely some other farmerswho had previously used only local markets began selling at distantmarkets because of new contacts with agents [F11]

We heard some reports of price stabilization since 2015 someparticipants reported fewer supply gluts and price crashes [A2G3] According to G3 ldquoBefore having mobile phones traders hadbetter margins because not many people had price information Noweverybody knows the pricesrdquo

Farmers told us about a variety of marketing heuristics they usedfor price discovery before the availability of mobile phones A2told us that he watched where other farmers sent vegetable trucksfrom his village and then sent his vegetables in other directions toavoid oversupply F4 stated that he went to far-off markets at thebeginning of a harvest of a particular crop because demand washigh then and supply low A2 (and several others) explained thatwhen the winds arose from the east and brought humidity for 2ndash3days production and quality increased traders knew this too sothese winds also brought the distance-traders to local markets

44 Non-Price Factors Impacting MarketingDecisions

Though price information was a key factor that influenced farmersrsquomarketing decisions participants also reported many other factorssuch as market capacity production volume time convenienceunfamiliarity with markets personal relationships connectionsrisk credit relationships and physical danger We now report onsome of these factors

Supply gluts and market capacity Participants reported thatmarkets occasionally became overwhelmed by large amounts ofproduce In such scenarios price crashes were common and farmerscould not sell any vegetables leading to severe losses Many farmersmentioned market capacity as an overriding concern the mostimportant factor for their profitability was their ability to sell theirentire stock of vegetables Some farmers expressed reluctance totry new markets due to fears of price crashes Since such crasheswere frequent in some small local markets during high productionseasons many farmers viewed either selling produce to farm-gatetraders or going to bigger far-away markets as safer options [F2F10 A4] A2 shared ldquoIf the market here has more harvest then wego to distant markets I have learned a lot by selling vegetables overthe years Letrsquos say I have 2 quintal [200kg] of tomatoes and if I getto know someone else has 5 quintal then I know that the rate fortomatoes is going to drop Itrsquos a competition cyclerdquo The capacity of amarket depends roughly on the number of traders In export-drivenmarkets outside traders come seasonally so capacity varies overthe year [F7 F8 A2]

Production volume and seasonalityWe observed that farm-ersrsquo marketing behaviors varied with their production volumeswhich depended on their farm sizes and seasonal changes Whenproduction was high volume often exceeded the capacity of localmarkets so farmers made the investment to try more distant mar-kets with higher capacities [A4 F8 F9] When volume was verylow some farmers did not find it worthwhile to put effort into mar-keting so they opted for convenience they stuck to local marketssold to local traders or simply sent their produce to market alongwith another farmer [F3 F5 A3 F6] F8 told us ldquoI never make any

User Research Towards a Market Information Service ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India

decision on prices When the volume is low I go to Dumri marketwhen itrsquos high I go to Nayabhojpur marketrdquo F5 a farmer with smallvolume regularly took a two-hour train to Patna the capital city tosell his vegetables in a retail market because it was too difficult tosell small quantities in wholesale ones Vehicle capacity presentedanother constraint during peak season insufficient vehicles wereavailable for hire so vegetables went to waste [F10]

Time and convenienceMarket trips could be immensely time-consuming for farmers and one of the biggest barriers to usingalternative markets was simply that it took too long During highproduction seasons farmers commonly went to market every 1ndash3 days [F2 F6 F8] Traveling to distant markets was reported tobe a major time investment some farmers reported making tripswith 2ndash4 hours of transport time each way [F2 F5] and sometimestraveling the whole night [F4 A2]

Once at the market they often waited for traders to buy theirproduce which on good days took 30 to 60 minutes [F1 F6] How-ever during high production season the sales often took muchlonger Farmers reported spending 3ndash5 hours to sell their produce[F6 F8] F1 said ldquoWhen there is a lot of harvest sometimes it takesthe whole day to sellrdquo

Some farmers reported selling to farm-gate traders because ofconvenience Farm-gate traders often supplied labor to handle thecutting packing and other processing this saved the time andhassle of going to the market [F3 F5 F10] F3 explained ldquoNow thatthese people do it I just give it to them I could not manage witheverything I am growing oldrdquo Many farmers also cited convenienceand time savings as reasons for using Loop [F3 F5 F7 F8 F9]

Unfamiliarity with newmarkets Farmers reported that lackof familiarity with new markets was a significant barrier againsttrying them Diversity in market structures and operations madeselling in a new market a daunting task and missteps could lead tobig losses For example A6 shared why some farmers were hesitantto try new markets ldquoIf farmers have to go to a distant market on ahot day and the stock is unprepared they might reach there late Ifthey reach late the market will be down by then Then who will taketheir stock He [the agent] will say lsquoyou have come so latersquo rdquo

Several farmers stressed the importance of gathering informationabout a new market before bringing vegetables there to sell such aswhich commission agents were good howmuch volume the marketcould handle who the major traders were whether vegetables camefrom outside which vegetables sold well and the peak operatingtimes throughout the year [F1 F4 A2 A4 A6] When asked whatadvice he would offer to other farmers A2 replied ldquoThe farmersneed to go to the markets and study the customers prices and qualityof harvest Without studying and experiencing it one cannot learnrdquoHe later told us ldquoThey should have a trusting relationship with thecommission agents and should know about the marketrsquos operationssuch as rates and processes all these things so they can handle themarketrsquos intricacies and fetch good prices Farmers should be informedabout the markets well before going If farmers are not well-informedand only make decisions on the basis of prices it will not be goodbecause every market has different operationsrdquo

In-market connections Participants told us that having con-nections in a market made selling produce much easier by providinginformation and help [F1 F4 A2 A4 A6] We heard several storiesof farmers trying new markets for the first time because they had

formed a connection with a commission agent [F1 F2 F8 F11] F11told us that he had never sold at any distant markets before gettinga mobile phone and he recently started going to the distant Bhastiand Bharadpur markets after getting phone numbers of commissionagents there from a local trader Similarly F2 tried going to thefar-off Sikanderpur market after meeting a Sikanderpur commissionagent who had come to his village Apart from just informationconnections were valuable for other support During our interviewof F1 another farmer interjected ldquoWhen we go to Buxar market weknow the commission agents If they are taking money then we canfight for our money because we know them With a different marketwe donrsquot know the commission agents we donrsquot have any power toexercise there So we donrsquot prefer those marketsrdquo

Relationships with commission agents Some farmers re-ported long-lasting relationships with commission agents onlyselling with 1 or 2 consistently [F1 F2] In these relationships com-mission agents often expected loyalty since collecting big volumesfrom many farmers was important for attracting traders F4 toldus that a farmer changing agents created a bad reputation in thatmarket and agents were less likely to extend credit or value thatfarmersrsquo business ldquoAll goes wrong if you keep switching agentsrdquo

Many interview subjects stressed the importance of trust be-tween farmers and commission agents [F1 F2 F4 A2 G1 G2 G3]because they are mutually dependent on each other to maintaintheir reputations exchange accurate information and uphold dealsCommission agents told us about their efforts to build relationshipswith farmers such as calling to ask about their families [G3] andgiving farmers gifts like tea Sprite and flashlights [G2]

Sometimes despite these relationships with commission agentsfarmers sold to other traders under the table For example F1 re-ported that sometimes traders would wait on the road outside themarket and approach farmers before they entered to avoid payingthe agentsrsquo commissions

Other farmers reported no such commitments to commissionagents and sold freely via different traders and agents based on priceonly [F7 F8 F9 A5] We heard many responses like ldquoWhicheveragent is giving good prices we prefer to go with themrsquo [F9] A5 toldus assertively ldquoWe want the price we donrsquot want a relationshiprdquo

Risk We encountered different attitudes towards risk-takingduring our interviews We speculate that wealthier farmers havebetter access to markets because they are more comfortable takingrisks with a financial safety cushion to fall on when things do notwork out Poor farmers are probably more constrained more oftenchoosing what they perceive as the safest option

Some farmers discussed price crashes frankly seeming to acceptthem as a part of doing business [F4 F5 F6 F8 A2] For exampleF5 stated ldquoYeah I have had to return home with the stock If today Iget a bad rate I might get a good rate tomorrowrdquo

Farmers F1 and F2 on the other hand appeared much morehesitant to take risks When asked why they seldom tried marketsother than Buxar they expressed concerns about spending toomuchto go to those markets without any guarantee that they would getgood rates and they recounted stories about visiting new marketsin the past and finding worse prices

The infrastructure of vegetable marketing in Bihar distributesrisk between all the different actors Commission agents and tradersabsorb some of the farmersrsquo risk A main benefit of selling through

ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India Ziegler Garg Tiwary Vashistha Heimerl

commission agents is that they usually pay farmers cash immedi-ately when the produce is sold to a trader Payments from tradersare sometimes delayed [F4 F9] since traders send cash throughintermediaries or pay only after selling the crops at another marketwhich usually takes 1ndash2 days but can take much longer when pricescrash [G1 G3] Commission agents in this way insulate farmersfrom price crash risks Local farm-gate traders often pay less thanmarket rates but in return they bare the transportation cost andthe risk of price fluctuations F3 told us ldquoI am too old to take care ofthe market things traders are a luxury because they take the riskrdquo

Credit After taking loans from commission agents at plantingtime some farmers were obligated to sell their vegetables throughthose agents [F1 F4 G2] Commission agent G2 explained thatwhen selling vegetables for farmers who have credit from him hewithheld |1ndash2 per kg of the payment for 2ndash3 days and then paid therest to the farmer only when he returned to sell more vegetables F4told us that commission agents sometimes offered him credit buthe refused so that he was not obligated to sell his produce throughthem All three commission agents who we interviewed insistedthat they did not charge interest on loans to farmers instead theyused the loans as a way to create business F1 however told us thathe payed |20 per |100 per month in interest to his agent

From our interviews the prevalence of these credit relationshipsbetween farmers and commission agents was unclear Only oneparticipant (F1) reported taking credit from agents However com-mission agent G2 told us that he gave credit to about 20 of every 100farmers he dealt with usually in amounts of |10000ndash|20000 F2told us that his commission agent gave him |500ndash|2000 advancesfor personal expenses but not larger loans Participants reportedhaving access to various other sources of credit such as local mon-eylenders [F6 F8] relatives and neighbors [F7 F10] None of thefarmers reported getting credit from vegetable traders

Danger and Bribes The peak activity of most big markets is inthe early morning and when the market is far away farmers haveto travel at night to reach in time Many farmers in our study areaexpressed reluctance to travel at night because of danger Somefarmers worried about getting robbed [F6] F2 and F10 stoppedgoing to distant markets because of police bribes F10 shared ldquoTherewas a problem with the police that resulted in a hassle to go there Onthe way there are two police vans by the road in the night checkpointand they ask for |200ndash500 There are about 10ndash15 such checkpointsYou end up giving about |3000 for the vehicle and about |1500 tothe police so any difference in market prices is a loss to usrdquo

45 Summary of InterviewsParticipants reported diverse marketing strategies some farmersregularly called connections to sell vegetables at many differentmarkets while others were bound to a specific commission agentin their local market or opted for the convenience of local tradersWe recorded reports of many but not all farmers using price in-formation to choose markets and negotiate with traders as well astraders using mobile phones for arbitrage between markets

We collected anecdotal reports of changes in markets aroundthe same time that mobile phones became widespread in the areaincluding increased numbers of traders shifts in market activity

and stabilization of prices Other factors influencing farmersrsquo mar-keting decisions included market capacity production volume timeunfamiliarity personal relationships risk credit and danger

5 MARKET INFO APP PAPER PROTOTYPESTo explore which market-access factors could be addressable withanMI service we next conducted a cognitive walkthrough and light-weight usability study of a series of low-fidelity system prototypesbuilt off of Loop and using Loop aggregators

As seen in our interviews and demonstrated by other Loop de-ployments Loop farmers often accessed previously-impracticalmarkets due to time savings and the pooling of transport costs Wethus focused on the use case of farmers considering new unfamiliarmarkets and the subset of market-access barriers that we believedto be most addressable via an information service including marketcontacts price volatility market capacity and transportation

51 MethodsWe designed four iterations of paper prototypes and tested theprototypes with nine Loop aggregators Sessions were conductedin the Buxar and Samastipur districts of Bihar Most participantswere selected using a convenience sampling methodology for be-ing present while conducting other Loop-related business a fewwere selected for being engaged Loop users Participants typicallyhad more education than other farmers all were literate and hadexperience using smartphones Many participants already had ex-perience with RampD processes having previously participated inexperimental Loop pilots

For testing we asked participants to imagine a hypothetical situa-tion in which they had to choose between unfamiliar markets to selltheir vegetables and navigate the paper prototypes withmocked-updata to find information and make a decision We carefully observedparticipants while they interacted with the prototypes and askedthem to speak their thought processes aloud Using the prototypesas a conversation piece we held open-ended conversations withthe participants about how to improve the designs and what otherfeatures they would like

Since prior work has noted high levels of response bias whenevaluating prototypes in HCI4D contexts [2 12 28] we used theldquosocial proofrdquo method to prime participants finding it surprisinglyeffective for soliciting critical feedback [34] We told participants atthe onset of the evaluation sessions that previous participants hadfound the screens confusing did not understand what the buttonsdid and did not find the features useful

52 FindingsHere we present our results that suggest avenues for addressingsome of the market-access barriers uncovered in our user research

Price stability andmarket capacity To help users know howstable or volatile prices are at a particular market we experimentedwith interfaces for showing historic prices We asked four aggrega-tors how many days of past prices they wanted to see and everyparticipant consistently answered that they wanted to see pricesonly for the last 2ndash4 daysParticipants reported that showing moredates would be unnecessary they could not predict future pricesfrom past prices and assessing price stability was the only use

User Research Towards a Market Information Service ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India

(a) Graph confusing (b) Dots unhelpful (c) Preferred

Figure 3 Presentations of past market prices to show mar-ket volatility All users preferred 3c (Figures are translatedfrom Hindi to English for this paper)

Graphs and visualizations are frequently used to show historicprices in many other contexts but we found them not to be useful inthis application Bar graphs (Figure 3a) confused participants othervisualizations (3b) were easier to understand but participants stillreported finding them unhelpful and unnecessarily complicated Allparticipants preferred the simplicity of seeing the prices in tabularform with no visualization (3c)

To communicate market capacity we showed screens labelingmarkets as lsquobig marketrsquo lsquomedium marketrsquo and lsquosmall marketrsquo show-ing these labels for multiple markets together so users could usefamiliar markets as references for unfamiliar ones (Figure 4a) Mostusers responded positively to this feature but we received feedbackthat some market sizes varied by season and that we should notewhich markets had outside traders who came seasonally

Transport costs During the usability tests with hypotheticalscenarios we asked users to find the market with the best payoffafter factoring in transportation costs We watched several usersstruggle to calculate payoff estimations having to keep track ofmany different numbers We considered awkward payoff-calculatorinterfaces that required significant data entry from users but wefound it more effective to simply show the cost of sending a pickuptruck to each market side-by-side with the prices (Figure 4a) Sinceonly one or two crops usually dominate a dayrsquos market trip thismock gave users the necessary information conveniently in onescreen Farmers commonly hire many different types of vehicleswith different costs but we opted to show only the cost of a pickuptruck on this screen because for distant markets it is rarely cost-effective to send any vehicle smaller than a pickup

Contacts Since many farmers cited the lack of contacts as abarrier to exploring newmarkets we showed a simple contacts pagefor commission agents at each market (see Figure 4b) We askedparticipants how they would choose which agent to contact anddiscussed options such as a rating system for agents or showingbiographical information such as vegetable specialties Several toldus that when scoping out a new market they looked for agentswith the most customers since that meant they were likely to begood agents Some participants stated that they would simply preferLoop to recommend a commission agent to them and that theywould trust the recommendation In addition to contact details ofcommission agents several participants told us that they wouldlike contacts of Loop farmers who frequented other markets sothey could learn from each other

We learned through this exercise that some factorsmdashincludingprice volatility transportation and payoff calculation and agent

(a) Mock prices screen forone crop showing marketsizes and transport costs

(b) Mock screen showingcommission agents for amarket

Figure 4 Example screen mocks shown to participants

contactsmdashare addressable through a mobile app or similar serviceHowever other important information for vegetable marketing iscomplex and difficult to capture in the structures of an MI serviceeg specific quality and processing information for each crop ateach market or the fact that one particular market shifts to nighttime for several months during the winter These factors may bebetter addressable through other media

6 DISCUSSIONWe set out to understand the potential benefits and limits of a mar-ket information service in Buxar Bihar Results from our interviewsand prototype exercises show how the arrival of mobile phoneshas brought changes to Buxarrsquos vegetable markets and examinethe many factors that influence farmersrsquo marketing behaviors Weend with a discussion of design considerations for MI services andother strategies to address market-access barriers

61 Information Asymmetry and ScarcityConsistent with the theories of information asymmetry and infor-mation scarcity we found evidence in the Buxar district showingthat conditions seemed favorable for improved market efficiencydue to better availability of price information Farmers frequentlyused their mobile phones to get price information from differentmarkets some using the prices to choose a market and negotiatewith traders After the widespread adoption of mobile phones in thearea farmers reported market changes consistent with the informa-tion scarcity theory with more traders moving vegetables betweenmarkets and fewer price crashes We also heard reports of farmersusing price information to negotiate higher prices from traders con-sistent with the information asymmetry theory Especially whencompared to other research that did not find such conditions inother locations [9 29] our work reinforces the importance of local-ization in the studies of MI services

62 Usefulness of an MI ServiceMany farmers used phone calls to access prices and other marketinformation from their social connections Would designing a dedi-cated MI service offer substantially more benefits to farmers than

ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India Ziegler Garg Tiwary Vashistha Heimerl

simply having mobile phones alone Our findings indicate severalpotential benefits in favor of the former Marketing is hugely time-consuming for farmers and an MI service could eliminate the needto make calls to multiple markets Not every farmer has marketconnections for checking prices over the phone and an MI servicecould reduce this barrier An MI service could also help to providediscretion and avoid social obligations for farmers such as F1 whoreported feeling obligated to sell to a certain commission agent if hecalled that agent to check the prices Commission agents sometimesquote misleading rates to farmers but an MI service could providemore reliable information

However many barriers to market access are simply not address-able by an information system like as danger time and credit Forsome other factorsmdashlike price volatility and unfamiliaritymdashan infor-mation system could provide some assistance but the complexityof vegetable marketing presents challenges

63 Future Work and Design ConsiderationsApart from the information scarcity of prices we demonstratedthrough our interviews the many other barriers that keep farm-ers from accessing other markets such as personal relationshipsprice volatility physical danger credit time unfamiliarity and lackof marketing skills Although we probed some of these barrierswith early-stage prototypes much more work is needed to evalu-ate which barriers are actually addressable using information andcommunication technologies

From our interview and prototyping work we are optimistic thatincluding some non-price information into an MI service could behelpful in this region We found positive reception for indicationsof market capacity price variability and contacts of commissionagents and traders at unfamiliar markets Although the prototypingexercises were rewarding to examine factors and their presenta-tions we will be able to answer many questions only by testingwith full implementations For example although many farmersindicated they would be comfortable calling unfamiliar traders andcommission agents in new markets only a deployment could revealwhether farmers and aggregators would indeed use this feature

We found that farmers often share prices around their villagesand make joint marketing decisions However most existing MI ser-vices target individuals There is an opportunity for more researchabout collaborative uses of market information

Especially because fewwomen can be found in Buxarrsquos wholesalevegetable markets additional work is needed to better understandthe roles and needs of women engaged in vegetable marketing

Our participants showed striking discrepancies in marketingskills some were incredibly savvy experienced marketers whogave us many tips and leveraged connections at dozens of differentmarkets many other farmers were inexperienced constrained andrisk-averse Because of the richness and complexity of vegetablemarketing strategies gaps in these skills are probably not well ad-dressable by a market information service and better suited to othermedia For example it may be fruitful to draw upon Vishwanathanet alrsquos work on consumer marketplace skills [35] They developeda participatory in-person market literacy course in south Indiathat covers topics like checking weights understanding price no-tations developing relationships with merchants and customers

basic accounting and avoiding credit and associated costs Alongthis vein some Loop farmers have suggested organizing lsquofield tripsrsquoto different markets to learn how they work Similarly multimediaapproachesmdashsuch as mFarmrsquos experiments in using community-ledvideo education to help users learn to use their MI service [36]mdashcould be expanded to cover more marketing skills

64 Study BiasesOur sample was not random and not fully representative of thearea All farmers we interviewed used the Loop service and likelyhad some different characteristics relative to non-users Notablyour sample included no women All participating farmers also usedLoop as a source of income and they likely did not want to sayanything that could damage that relationship

65 Ongoing Work by LoopAt the time of writing Loop has started early-stage pilots of anSMS- and IVR-based market price service and trials of a smartphoneapplication built from our prototypes (Section 5) Through theseprototypes we hope to build an MI service that can change themarketing behaviors of Loop farmers solicit farmer feedback aboutfeatures and further develop our user interfaces

Loop has other ongoing projects to address market-access barri-ers outside the reach of an information system One project coordi-nates multiple villages for more cost-effective transportation Toaddress market unfamiliarity Loop has a pilot to explore how partic-ipatory user-generated videos [17] could be leveraged to familiarizeusers with aspects of different markets for example demonstratingthe best way to cut cauliflower for a particular destination Ongo-ing pilots with digital payments allow farmers to send produce todistant markets without the risk and delay of sending cash back

7 CONCLUSIONWe have shown that farmers in Buxar commonly use mobile phonesto acquire price information for bargaining and market choice sug-gesting the usefulness of a market information service to reduceinformation scarcity and information asymmetry We have reportedfactors that limit the usefulness of market price information includ-ing time and convenience unfamiliarity with new markets lackof connections personal relationships price crashes productionvolume attitudes towards risk credit relationships and physicaldanger and we have presented further results from exploratoryuser studies for addressing specific barriers to market access

8 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSThe authors gratefully acknowledge the entire Loop team especiallythose members who contributed to this project Aditya Sethi EricaArya Ashok Kumar Bipin Raj Divish Gupta Abhishek Lodha andS Kaushik We are thankful to our anonymous reviewers who pro-vided important feedback and to Ishan Sapru Chrungoo KonarakRatnakar and Bharat Agarwal who transcribed and translated in-terviews We are especially grateful to the farmers who generouslycontributed their time effort and hospitality

User Research Towards a Market Information Service ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India

REFERENCES[1] RML Agtech 2018 FarmBee httpsfarmbeein Accessed 2018-07-18[2] Yaw Anokwa Thomas N Smyth Divya Ramachandran Jahanzeb Sherwani Yael

Schwartzman Rowena Luk Melissa Ho Neema Moraveji and Brian DeRenzi2009 Stories from the field Reflections on HCI4D experiences InformationTechnologies amp International Development 5 4 (2009)

[3] GSM Association 2013 Mobile Market Information for Agri VAS Operators AQuick Start Guide

[4] World Bank 2012 Information and communications for development 2012Maximizing mobile httpgoworldbankorg0J2CTQTYP0 Accessed 2018-07-18

[5] Heike Baumuumlller 2015 Enhancing smallholder market participation throughmobile phone-enabled services The case of M-Farm in Kenya The ElectronicJournal of Information Systems in Developing Countries 68 (2015) 1ndash16 Issue 6

[6] Heike Baumuumlller 2017 The LittleWe Know An Exploratory Literature Review onthe Utility of Mobile Phone-Enabled Services for Smallholder Farmers Journal ofInternational Development 30 1 (2017) 134ndash154 httpsdoiorg101002jid3314

[7] Raymond A Boadi Richard Boateng Robert Hinson and Robert A Opoku2007 Preliminary Insights into M-commerce Adoption in Ghana InformationDevelopment 23 4 (2007) 253ndash265 httpsdoiorg1011770266666907084761

[8] Virginia Braun and Victoria Clarke 2006 Using thematic analysis in psychologyQualitative Research in Psychology 3 2 (2006) 77ndash101 httpsdoiorg1011911478088706qp063oa

[9] Jenna Burrell and Elisa Oreglia 2015 The myth of market price informationmobile phones and the application of economic knowledge in ICTD Economyand Society 44 2 (2015) 271ndash292 httpsdoiorg1010800308514720151013742

[10] Adriana Camacho and Emily Conover 2010 The Impact of Receiving Price andClimate Information in the Agricultural Sector SSRN Electronic Journal (2010)httpsdoiorg102139ssrn1755057

[11] Pierre Courtois and Julie Subervie 2014 Farmer Bargaining Power and MarketInformation Services American Journal of Agricultural Economics 97 3 (2014)953ndash977 httpsdoiorg101093ajaeaau051

[12] Nicola Dell Vidya Vaidyanathan Indrani Medhi Edward Cutrell and WilliamThies 2012 Yours is Better Participant Response Bias in HCI Proceedings ofthe 2012 ACM annual conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - CHI12 (2012) httpsdoiorg10114522076762208589

[13] Esoko 2018 Mobile and Web Apps for Data Collection and Communicationhttpswwwesokocom Accessed 2018-07-18

[14] Marcel Fafchamps and Ruth Vargas Hill 2008 Price Transmission and TraderEntry in Domestic Commodity Markets Economic Development and CulturalChange 56 4 (2008) 729ndash766 httpsdoiorg101086588155

[15] Marcel Fafchamps and Bart Minten 2012 Impact of SMS-Based AgriculturalInformation on Indian Farmers The World Bank Economic Review 26 3 (Jan 2012)383ndash414 httpsdoiorg101093wberlhr056

[16] NYU Center for Technology and Economic Development 2013 Market Informa-tion Systems for Rural Farmers Evaluation Of Esoko MIS ndash Year 1 Results (Mar2013) httpwwwnyuctedorgarchives1108

[17] Rikin Gandhi Rajesh Veeraraghavan Kentaro Toyama and Vanaja Ramprasad2007 Digital Green Participatory video for agricultural extension 2007 Interna-tional Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Develop-ment (2007) httpsdoiorg101109ictd20074937388

[18] M Sirajul Islam and Ake Groumlnlund 2010 An agricultural market informationservice (AMIS) in Bangladesh evaluating a mobile phone based e-service in arural context Information Development 26 4 (2010) 289ndash302 httpsdoiorg10

11770266666910385556[19] R Jensen 2007 The Digital Provide Information (Technology) Market Perfor-

mance and Welfare in the South Indian Fisheries Sector The Quarterly Journalof Economics 122 3 (Jan 2007) 879ndash924 httpsdoiorg101162qjec1223879

[20] Devesh Kapur andMekhala Krishnamurthy 2014 UnderstandingMandis MarketTowns and the Dynamics of Indiarsquos Rural and Urban Transformations Center forthe Advanced Study of India Working Papers Series F-35007-INC-1 (2014)

[21] Sriganesh Lokanathan Harsha De Silva and Iran Fernando 2011 2 Price trans-parency in agricultural produce markets Sri Lanka Strengthening Rural Liveli-hoods (2011) 15ndash32 httpsdoiorg1033629781780440361002

[22] Loop 2018 Loop Connecting Farmers to Markets httpsloopapporg Accessed2018-07-18

[23] M-Farm Ltd 2018 mFarm httpsmfarmcoke Accessed 2018-07-18[24] Pierre R Meacuterel Richard J Sexton and Aya Suzuki 2009 Optimal Invest-

ment in Transportation Infrastructure When Middlemen Have Market Power ADeveloping-Country Analysis American Journal of Agricultural Economics 91 2(2009) 462ndash476 httpsdoiorg101111j1467-8276200801245x

[25] Eduardo Nakasone 2013 The role of price information in agricultural marketsexperimental evidence from rural Peru In Agricultural amp Applied EconomicsAssociationrsquos 2013 AAEA amp CAES Joint Annual Meeting

[26] Ministry of Health and Government of India Family Welfare 2017 NationalFamily Health Survey 2015-2016 (NFHS-4)

[27] Census of India 2011 List of states with Population Sex Ratio and LiteracyCensus 2011 httpwwwcensus2011coinstatesphp

[28] Martin T Orne 1962 On the social psychology of the psychological experi-ment With particular reference to demand characteristics and their implicationsAmerican Psychologist 17 11 (1962) 776ndash783 httpsdoiorg101037h0043424

[29] Janaki Srinivasan and Jenna Burrell 2013 Revisiting the fishers of Kerala IndiaProceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Information and Commu-nication Technologies and Development Full Papers - ICTD 13 - volume 1 (2013)httpsdoiorg10114525166042516618

[30] George J Stigler 1976 The Economics of Information Lecture Notes in Economicsand Mathematical Systems Mathematical Models in Marketing (1976) 272ndash275httpsdoiorg101007978-3-642-51565-1_86

[31] Joseph E Stiglitz 1989 Chapter 13 Imperfect information in the product marketHandbook of Industrial Organization Handbook of Industrial Organization Volume1 (1989) 769ndash847 httpsdoiorg101016s1573-448x(89)01016-2

[32] Mark Tran 2013 Cassava on eBay M-Farm SMS helps Kenyarsquos farmersget better prices The Guardian (Jul 2013) httpswwwtheguardiancomglobal-development2013jul04m-farm-kenya-food-security

[33] USAID 2013 An Assessment of Market Information Systems in East Africa(May 2013)

[34] Aditya Vashistha Fabian Okeke Richard Anderson and Nicola Dell 2018 rsquoYouCan Always Do Betterrsquo The Impact of Social Proof on Participant Response BiasProceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems -CHI 18 (2018) httpsdoiorg10114531735743174126

[35] Madhubalan Viswanathan S Gajendiran and R Venkatesan 2008 Understandingand Enabling Marketplace Literacy in Subsistence Contexts The developmentof a consumer and entrepreneurial literacy educational program in South IndiaInternational Journal of Educational Development 28 (05 2008) 300ndash319 httpsdoiorg101016jijedudev200705004

[36] SusanWyche and Charles Steinfield 2015 Why Dont Farmers Use Cell Phones toAccess Market Prices Technology Affordances and Barriers to Market Informa-tion Services Adoption in Rural Kenya Information Technology for Development22 2 (2015) 320ndash333 httpsdoiorg1010800268110220151048184

ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India Ziegler Garg Tiwary Vashistha Heimerl

Farmers having stable relationships with commission agents told usthat the agents nearly always quoted accurate prices [F1 A2] Somefarmers reported that unfamiliar commission agents sometimesmislead farmers by quoting prices higher than the real prevailingprice to draw farmers to their market [F1 F2 F8 F10]

Some farmers reported calling both in-market and farm-gatetraders to check prices and make verbal deals to sell over the phoneagreeing on a quantity and a price [F8 F10 A5] Sometimes as in thecase of F8 traders also called farmers when they need vegetablesthey offer a price and tell farmers the quantity to bring

Market choices A few participants reported checking pricesat several markets before deciding where to take their vegetables[F10 F11 A2 A5] For example A5 shared that he sold his produceto retail traders at three local markets and called each market tocheck prices and make a verbal agreement about rates before goingSimilarly F10 reported calling a commission agent to check pricesat a distant large market to decide whether to go and then checkingprices with other agents after he arrived at the market

Negotiation Many farmers reported using price informationin negotiations comparing tradersrsquo rates against other traders andagainst market prices [F2 F6 F7 F8 F10 F11 A3 A4 A5] Forexample F7 stated ldquoWe negotiate with farm-gate traders based on theprevious dayrsquos market rates We offer 2 rupees above yesterdayrsquos rateand then the traders negotiate it down to 1 rupee above yesterdayrsquosraterdquo In another example F8 said that he called traders in the largefar-off Ara market to gain negotiating power against local traderssince rates were always |2ndash8 higher there

Arbitrage Commission agents reported that traders regularlyused mobile phones for arbitrage leveraging price information tobuy produce in one market and sell it in another For example G3shared that 5ndash6 outside traders came to his market daily duringpeak season and called in themornings to check prices Commissionagent G1 also reported calling other markets daily to check pricesand arrange deals with traders

43 Changes in Markets After Mobile PhonesSeveral participants reported significant changes in vegetable mar-kets since 2015 around the same time when mobile phones re-portedly became widespread in this area [G3 F11] These changesincluded big increases in the numbers of traders shifts in mar-ket activity and stabilization of prices Some participants directlyattributed the changes to mobile phones [F11 A2 G3] For exam-ple F11 stated ldquoEarlier before mobile phones were here not manytraders came But now that they know the rates they come here tobuy vegetablesrdquo Some participants noted that improvements in roadconnectivity around the same time also likely played an importantrole [F4 F11 A4] as well as shifts in trader patterns due a bridgebecoming impassable [F4 A4]

Many participants reported a large increase in the number oftraders since about 2015 [F4 F7 F11 A2 G3] For example A2 notedthat only 2ndash4 farm-gate traders used to come to his village dailyand the number had increased to about 15ndash20 at present Becauseof increased trader activity in local markets some farmers shiftedfrom selling in distant markets to local ones [F4 F7 A4] FarmerF7 had gone to the large distant Ara market until 3ndash4 years agosaying ldquoThe traders from Ara market are coming here now so there

is no point in going to Ara marketrdquo Conversely some other farmerswho had previously used only local markets began selling at distantmarkets because of new contacts with agents [F11]

We heard some reports of price stabilization since 2015 someparticipants reported fewer supply gluts and price crashes [A2G3] According to G3 ldquoBefore having mobile phones traders hadbetter margins because not many people had price information Noweverybody knows the pricesrdquo

Farmers told us about a variety of marketing heuristics they usedfor price discovery before the availability of mobile phones A2told us that he watched where other farmers sent vegetable trucksfrom his village and then sent his vegetables in other directions toavoid oversupply F4 stated that he went to far-off markets at thebeginning of a harvest of a particular crop because demand washigh then and supply low A2 (and several others) explained thatwhen the winds arose from the east and brought humidity for 2ndash3days production and quality increased traders knew this too sothese winds also brought the distance-traders to local markets

44 Non-Price Factors Impacting MarketingDecisions

Though price information was a key factor that influenced farmersrsquomarketing decisions participants also reported many other factorssuch as market capacity production volume time convenienceunfamiliarity with markets personal relationships connectionsrisk credit relationships and physical danger We now report onsome of these factors

Supply gluts and market capacity Participants reported thatmarkets occasionally became overwhelmed by large amounts ofproduce In such scenarios price crashes were common and farmerscould not sell any vegetables leading to severe losses Many farmersmentioned market capacity as an overriding concern the mostimportant factor for their profitability was their ability to sell theirentire stock of vegetables Some farmers expressed reluctance totry new markets due to fears of price crashes Since such crasheswere frequent in some small local markets during high productionseasons many farmers viewed either selling produce to farm-gatetraders or going to bigger far-away markets as safer options [F2F10 A4] A2 shared ldquoIf the market here has more harvest then wego to distant markets I have learned a lot by selling vegetables overthe years Letrsquos say I have 2 quintal [200kg] of tomatoes and if I getto know someone else has 5 quintal then I know that the rate fortomatoes is going to drop Itrsquos a competition cyclerdquo The capacity of amarket depends roughly on the number of traders In export-drivenmarkets outside traders come seasonally so capacity varies overthe year [F7 F8 A2]

Production volume and seasonalityWe observed that farm-ersrsquo marketing behaviors varied with their production volumeswhich depended on their farm sizes and seasonal changes Whenproduction was high volume often exceeded the capacity of localmarkets so farmers made the investment to try more distant mar-kets with higher capacities [A4 F8 F9] When volume was verylow some farmers did not find it worthwhile to put effort into mar-keting so they opted for convenience they stuck to local marketssold to local traders or simply sent their produce to market alongwith another farmer [F3 F5 A3 F6] F8 told us ldquoI never make any

User Research Towards a Market Information Service ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India

decision on prices When the volume is low I go to Dumri marketwhen itrsquos high I go to Nayabhojpur marketrdquo F5 a farmer with smallvolume regularly took a two-hour train to Patna the capital city tosell his vegetables in a retail market because it was too difficult tosell small quantities in wholesale ones Vehicle capacity presentedanother constraint during peak season insufficient vehicles wereavailable for hire so vegetables went to waste [F10]

Time and convenienceMarket trips could be immensely time-consuming for farmers and one of the biggest barriers to usingalternative markets was simply that it took too long During highproduction seasons farmers commonly went to market every 1ndash3 days [F2 F6 F8] Traveling to distant markets was reported tobe a major time investment some farmers reported making tripswith 2ndash4 hours of transport time each way [F2 F5] and sometimestraveling the whole night [F4 A2]

Once at the market they often waited for traders to buy theirproduce which on good days took 30 to 60 minutes [F1 F6] How-ever during high production season the sales often took muchlonger Farmers reported spending 3ndash5 hours to sell their produce[F6 F8] F1 said ldquoWhen there is a lot of harvest sometimes it takesthe whole day to sellrdquo

Some farmers reported selling to farm-gate traders because ofconvenience Farm-gate traders often supplied labor to handle thecutting packing and other processing this saved the time andhassle of going to the market [F3 F5 F10] F3 explained ldquoNow thatthese people do it I just give it to them I could not manage witheverything I am growing oldrdquo Many farmers also cited convenienceand time savings as reasons for using Loop [F3 F5 F7 F8 F9]

Unfamiliarity with newmarkets Farmers reported that lackof familiarity with new markets was a significant barrier againsttrying them Diversity in market structures and operations madeselling in a new market a daunting task and missteps could lead tobig losses For example A6 shared why some farmers were hesitantto try new markets ldquoIf farmers have to go to a distant market on ahot day and the stock is unprepared they might reach there late Ifthey reach late the market will be down by then Then who will taketheir stock He [the agent] will say lsquoyou have come so latersquo rdquo

Several farmers stressed the importance of gathering informationabout a new market before bringing vegetables there to sell such aswhich commission agents were good howmuch volume the marketcould handle who the major traders were whether vegetables camefrom outside which vegetables sold well and the peak operatingtimes throughout the year [F1 F4 A2 A4 A6] When asked whatadvice he would offer to other farmers A2 replied ldquoThe farmersneed to go to the markets and study the customers prices and qualityof harvest Without studying and experiencing it one cannot learnrdquoHe later told us ldquoThey should have a trusting relationship with thecommission agents and should know about the marketrsquos operationssuch as rates and processes all these things so they can handle themarketrsquos intricacies and fetch good prices Farmers should be informedabout the markets well before going If farmers are not well-informedand only make decisions on the basis of prices it will not be goodbecause every market has different operationsrdquo

In-market connections Participants told us that having con-nections in a market made selling produce much easier by providinginformation and help [F1 F4 A2 A4 A6] We heard several storiesof farmers trying new markets for the first time because they had

formed a connection with a commission agent [F1 F2 F8 F11] F11told us that he had never sold at any distant markets before gettinga mobile phone and he recently started going to the distant Bhastiand Bharadpur markets after getting phone numbers of commissionagents there from a local trader Similarly F2 tried going to thefar-off Sikanderpur market after meeting a Sikanderpur commissionagent who had come to his village Apart from just informationconnections were valuable for other support During our interviewof F1 another farmer interjected ldquoWhen we go to Buxar market weknow the commission agents If they are taking money then we canfight for our money because we know them With a different marketwe donrsquot know the commission agents we donrsquot have any power toexercise there So we donrsquot prefer those marketsrdquo

Relationships with commission agents Some farmers re-ported long-lasting relationships with commission agents onlyselling with 1 or 2 consistently [F1 F2] In these relationships com-mission agents often expected loyalty since collecting big volumesfrom many farmers was important for attracting traders F4 toldus that a farmer changing agents created a bad reputation in thatmarket and agents were less likely to extend credit or value thatfarmersrsquo business ldquoAll goes wrong if you keep switching agentsrdquo

Many interview subjects stressed the importance of trust be-tween farmers and commission agents [F1 F2 F4 A2 G1 G2 G3]because they are mutually dependent on each other to maintaintheir reputations exchange accurate information and uphold dealsCommission agents told us about their efforts to build relationshipswith farmers such as calling to ask about their families [G3] andgiving farmers gifts like tea Sprite and flashlights [G2]

Sometimes despite these relationships with commission agentsfarmers sold to other traders under the table For example F1 re-ported that sometimes traders would wait on the road outside themarket and approach farmers before they entered to avoid payingthe agentsrsquo commissions

Other farmers reported no such commitments to commissionagents and sold freely via different traders and agents based on priceonly [F7 F8 F9 A5] We heard many responses like ldquoWhicheveragent is giving good prices we prefer to go with themrsquo [F9] A5 toldus assertively ldquoWe want the price we donrsquot want a relationshiprdquo

Risk We encountered different attitudes towards risk-takingduring our interviews We speculate that wealthier farmers havebetter access to markets because they are more comfortable takingrisks with a financial safety cushion to fall on when things do notwork out Poor farmers are probably more constrained more oftenchoosing what they perceive as the safest option

Some farmers discussed price crashes frankly seeming to acceptthem as a part of doing business [F4 F5 F6 F8 A2] For exampleF5 stated ldquoYeah I have had to return home with the stock If today Iget a bad rate I might get a good rate tomorrowrdquo

Farmers F1 and F2 on the other hand appeared much morehesitant to take risks When asked why they seldom tried marketsother than Buxar they expressed concerns about spending toomuchto go to those markets without any guarantee that they would getgood rates and they recounted stories about visiting new marketsin the past and finding worse prices

The infrastructure of vegetable marketing in Bihar distributesrisk between all the different actors Commission agents and tradersabsorb some of the farmersrsquo risk A main benefit of selling through

ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India Ziegler Garg Tiwary Vashistha Heimerl

commission agents is that they usually pay farmers cash immedi-ately when the produce is sold to a trader Payments from tradersare sometimes delayed [F4 F9] since traders send cash throughintermediaries or pay only after selling the crops at another marketwhich usually takes 1ndash2 days but can take much longer when pricescrash [G1 G3] Commission agents in this way insulate farmersfrom price crash risks Local farm-gate traders often pay less thanmarket rates but in return they bare the transportation cost andthe risk of price fluctuations F3 told us ldquoI am too old to take care ofthe market things traders are a luxury because they take the riskrdquo

Credit After taking loans from commission agents at plantingtime some farmers were obligated to sell their vegetables throughthose agents [F1 F4 G2] Commission agent G2 explained thatwhen selling vegetables for farmers who have credit from him hewithheld |1ndash2 per kg of the payment for 2ndash3 days and then paid therest to the farmer only when he returned to sell more vegetables F4told us that commission agents sometimes offered him credit buthe refused so that he was not obligated to sell his produce throughthem All three commission agents who we interviewed insistedthat they did not charge interest on loans to farmers instead theyused the loans as a way to create business F1 however told us thathe payed |20 per |100 per month in interest to his agent

From our interviews the prevalence of these credit relationshipsbetween farmers and commission agents was unclear Only oneparticipant (F1) reported taking credit from agents However com-mission agent G2 told us that he gave credit to about 20 of every 100farmers he dealt with usually in amounts of |10000ndash|20000 F2told us that his commission agent gave him |500ndash|2000 advancesfor personal expenses but not larger loans Participants reportedhaving access to various other sources of credit such as local mon-eylenders [F6 F8] relatives and neighbors [F7 F10] None of thefarmers reported getting credit from vegetable traders

Danger and Bribes The peak activity of most big markets is inthe early morning and when the market is far away farmers haveto travel at night to reach in time Many farmers in our study areaexpressed reluctance to travel at night because of danger Somefarmers worried about getting robbed [F6] F2 and F10 stoppedgoing to distant markets because of police bribes F10 shared ldquoTherewas a problem with the police that resulted in a hassle to go there Onthe way there are two police vans by the road in the night checkpointand they ask for |200ndash500 There are about 10ndash15 such checkpointsYou end up giving about |3000 for the vehicle and about |1500 tothe police so any difference in market prices is a loss to usrdquo

45 Summary of InterviewsParticipants reported diverse marketing strategies some farmersregularly called connections to sell vegetables at many differentmarkets while others were bound to a specific commission agentin their local market or opted for the convenience of local tradersWe recorded reports of many but not all farmers using price in-formation to choose markets and negotiate with traders as well astraders using mobile phones for arbitrage between markets

We collected anecdotal reports of changes in markets aroundthe same time that mobile phones became widespread in the areaincluding increased numbers of traders shifts in market activity

and stabilization of prices Other factors influencing farmersrsquo mar-keting decisions included market capacity production volume timeunfamiliarity personal relationships risk credit and danger

5 MARKET INFO APP PAPER PROTOTYPESTo explore which market-access factors could be addressable withanMI service we next conducted a cognitive walkthrough and light-weight usability study of a series of low-fidelity system prototypesbuilt off of Loop and using Loop aggregators

As seen in our interviews and demonstrated by other Loop de-ployments Loop farmers often accessed previously-impracticalmarkets due to time savings and the pooling of transport costs Wethus focused on the use case of farmers considering new unfamiliarmarkets and the subset of market-access barriers that we believedto be most addressable via an information service including marketcontacts price volatility market capacity and transportation

51 MethodsWe designed four iterations of paper prototypes and tested theprototypes with nine Loop aggregators Sessions were conductedin the Buxar and Samastipur districts of Bihar Most participantswere selected using a convenience sampling methodology for be-ing present while conducting other Loop-related business a fewwere selected for being engaged Loop users Participants typicallyhad more education than other farmers all were literate and hadexperience using smartphones Many participants already had ex-perience with RampD processes having previously participated inexperimental Loop pilots

For testing we asked participants to imagine a hypothetical situa-tion in which they had to choose between unfamiliar markets to selltheir vegetables and navigate the paper prototypes withmocked-updata to find information and make a decision We carefully observedparticipants while they interacted with the prototypes and askedthem to speak their thought processes aloud Using the prototypesas a conversation piece we held open-ended conversations withthe participants about how to improve the designs and what otherfeatures they would like

Since prior work has noted high levels of response bias whenevaluating prototypes in HCI4D contexts [2 12 28] we used theldquosocial proofrdquo method to prime participants finding it surprisinglyeffective for soliciting critical feedback [34] We told participants atthe onset of the evaluation sessions that previous participants hadfound the screens confusing did not understand what the buttonsdid and did not find the features useful

52 FindingsHere we present our results that suggest avenues for addressingsome of the market-access barriers uncovered in our user research

Price stability andmarket capacity To help users know howstable or volatile prices are at a particular market we experimentedwith interfaces for showing historic prices We asked four aggrega-tors how many days of past prices they wanted to see and everyparticipant consistently answered that they wanted to see pricesonly for the last 2ndash4 daysParticipants reported that showing moredates would be unnecessary they could not predict future pricesfrom past prices and assessing price stability was the only use

User Research Towards a Market Information Service ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India

(a) Graph confusing (b) Dots unhelpful (c) Preferred

Figure 3 Presentations of past market prices to show mar-ket volatility All users preferred 3c (Figures are translatedfrom Hindi to English for this paper)

Graphs and visualizations are frequently used to show historicprices in many other contexts but we found them not to be useful inthis application Bar graphs (Figure 3a) confused participants othervisualizations (3b) were easier to understand but participants stillreported finding them unhelpful and unnecessarily complicated Allparticipants preferred the simplicity of seeing the prices in tabularform with no visualization (3c)

To communicate market capacity we showed screens labelingmarkets as lsquobig marketrsquo lsquomedium marketrsquo and lsquosmall marketrsquo show-ing these labels for multiple markets together so users could usefamiliar markets as references for unfamiliar ones (Figure 4a) Mostusers responded positively to this feature but we received feedbackthat some market sizes varied by season and that we should notewhich markets had outside traders who came seasonally

Transport costs During the usability tests with hypotheticalscenarios we asked users to find the market with the best payoffafter factoring in transportation costs We watched several usersstruggle to calculate payoff estimations having to keep track ofmany different numbers We considered awkward payoff-calculatorinterfaces that required significant data entry from users but wefound it more effective to simply show the cost of sending a pickuptruck to each market side-by-side with the prices (Figure 4a) Sinceonly one or two crops usually dominate a dayrsquos market trip thismock gave users the necessary information conveniently in onescreen Farmers commonly hire many different types of vehicleswith different costs but we opted to show only the cost of a pickuptruck on this screen because for distant markets it is rarely cost-effective to send any vehicle smaller than a pickup

Contacts Since many farmers cited the lack of contacts as abarrier to exploring newmarkets we showed a simple contacts pagefor commission agents at each market (see Figure 4b) We askedparticipants how they would choose which agent to contact anddiscussed options such as a rating system for agents or showingbiographical information such as vegetable specialties Several toldus that when scoping out a new market they looked for agentswith the most customers since that meant they were likely to begood agents Some participants stated that they would simply preferLoop to recommend a commission agent to them and that theywould trust the recommendation In addition to contact details ofcommission agents several participants told us that they wouldlike contacts of Loop farmers who frequented other markets sothey could learn from each other

We learned through this exercise that some factorsmdashincludingprice volatility transportation and payoff calculation and agent

(a) Mock prices screen forone crop showing marketsizes and transport costs

(b) Mock screen showingcommission agents for amarket

Figure 4 Example screen mocks shown to participants

contactsmdashare addressable through a mobile app or similar serviceHowever other important information for vegetable marketing iscomplex and difficult to capture in the structures of an MI serviceeg specific quality and processing information for each crop ateach market or the fact that one particular market shifts to nighttime for several months during the winter These factors may bebetter addressable through other media

6 DISCUSSIONWe set out to understand the potential benefits and limits of a mar-ket information service in Buxar Bihar Results from our interviewsand prototype exercises show how the arrival of mobile phoneshas brought changes to Buxarrsquos vegetable markets and examinethe many factors that influence farmersrsquo marketing behaviors Weend with a discussion of design considerations for MI services andother strategies to address market-access barriers

61 Information Asymmetry and ScarcityConsistent with the theories of information asymmetry and infor-mation scarcity we found evidence in the Buxar district showingthat conditions seemed favorable for improved market efficiencydue to better availability of price information Farmers frequentlyused their mobile phones to get price information from differentmarkets some using the prices to choose a market and negotiatewith traders After the widespread adoption of mobile phones in thearea farmers reported market changes consistent with the informa-tion scarcity theory with more traders moving vegetables betweenmarkets and fewer price crashes We also heard reports of farmersusing price information to negotiate higher prices from traders con-sistent with the information asymmetry theory Especially whencompared to other research that did not find such conditions inother locations [9 29] our work reinforces the importance of local-ization in the studies of MI services

62 Usefulness of an MI ServiceMany farmers used phone calls to access prices and other marketinformation from their social connections Would designing a dedi-cated MI service offer substantially more benefits to farmers than

ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India Ziegler Garg Tiwary Vashistha Heimerl

simply having mobile phones alone Our findings indicate severalpotential benefits in favor of the former Marketing is hugely time-consuming for farmers and an MI service could eliminate the needto make calls to multiple markets Not every farmer has marketconnections for checking prices over the phone and an MI servicecould reduce this barrier An MI service could also help to providediscretion and avoid social obligations for farmers such as F1 whoreported feeling obligated to sell to a certain commission agent if hecalled that agent to check the prices Commission agents sometimesquote misleading rates to farmers but an MI service could providemore reliable information

However many barriers to market access are simply not address-able by an information system like as danger time and credit Forsome other factorsmdashlike price volatility and unfamiliaritymdashan infor-mation system could provide some assistance but the complexityof vegetable marketing presents challenges

63 Future Work and Design ConsiderationsApart from the information scarcity of prices we demonstratedthrough our interviews the many other barriers that keep farm-ers from accessing other markets such as personal relationshipsprice volatility physical danger credit time unfamiliarity and lackof marketing skills Although we probed some of these barrierswith early-stage prototypes much more work is needed to evalu-ate which barriers are actually addressable using information andcommunication technologies

From our interview and prototyping work we are optimistic thatincluding some non-price information into an MI service could behelpful in this region We found positive reception for indicationsof market capacity price variability and contacts of commissionagents and traders at unfamiliar markets Although the prototypingexercises were rewarding to examine factors and their presenta-tions we will be able to answer many questions only by testingwith full implementations For example although many farmersindicated they would be comfortable calling unfamiliar traders andcommission agents in new markets only a deployment could revealwhether farmers and aggregators would indeed use this feature

We found that farmers often share prices around their villagesand make joint marketing decisions However most existing MI ser-vices target individuals There is an opportunity for more researchabout collaborative uses of market information

Especially because fewwomen can be found in Buxarrsquos wholesalevegetable markets additional work is needed to better understandthe roles and needs of women engaged in vegetable marketing

Our participants showed striking discrepancies in marketingskills some were incredibly savvy experienced marketers whogave us many tips and leveraged connections at dozens of differentmarkets many other farmers were inexperienced constrained andrisk-averse Because of the richness and complexity of vegetablemarketing strategies gaps in these skills are probably not well ad-dressable by a market information service and better suited to othermedia For example it may be fruitful to draw upon Vishwanathanet alrsquos work on consumer marketplace skills [35] They developeda participatory in-person market literacy course in south Indiathat covers topics like checking weights understanding price no-tations developing relationships with merchants and customers

basic accounting and avoiding credit and associated costs Alongthis vein some Loop farmers have suggested organizing lsquofield tripsrsquoto different markets to learn how they work Similarly multimediaapproachesmdashsuch as mFarmrsquos experiments in using community-ledvideo education to help users learn to use their MI service [36]mdashcould be expanded to cover more marketing skills

64 Study BiasesOur sample was not random and not fully representative of thearea All farmers we interviewed used the Loop service and likelyhad some different characteristics relative to non-users Notablyour sample included no women All participating farmers also usedLoop as a source of income and they likely did not want to sayanything that could damage that relationship

65 Ongoing Work by LoopAt the time of writing Loop has started early-stage pilots of anSMS- and IVR-based market price service and trials of a smartphoneapplication built from our prototypes (Section 5) Through theseprototypes we hope to build an MI service that can change themarketing behaviors of Loop farmers solicit farmer feedback aboutfeatures and further develop our user interfaces

Loop has other ongoing projects to address market-access barri-ers outside the reach of an information system One project coordi-nates multiple villages for more cost-effective transportation Toaddress market unfamiliarity Loop has a pilot to explore how partic-ipatory user-generated videos [17] could be leveraged to familiarizeusers with aspects of different markets for example demonstratingthe best way to cut cauliflower for a particular destination Ongo-ing pilots with digital payments allow farmers to send produce todistant markets without the risk and delay of sending cash back

7 CONCLUSIONWe have shown that farmers in Buxar commonly use mobile phonesto acquire price information for bargaining and market choice sug-gesting the usefulness of a market information service to reduceinformation scarcity and information asymmetry We have reportedfactors that limit the usefulness of market price information includ-ing time and convenience unfamiliarity with new markets lackof connections personal relationships price crashes productionvolume attitudes towards risk credit relationships and physicaldanger and we have presented further results from exploratoryuser studies for addressing specific barriers to market access

8 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSThe authors gratefully acknowledge the entire Loop team especiallythose members who contributed to this project Aditya Sethi EricaArya Ashok Kumar Bipin Raj Divish Gupta Abhishek Lodha andS Kaushik We are thankful to our anonymous reviewers who pro-vided important feedback and to Ishan Sapru Chrungoo KonarakRatnakar and Bharat Agarwal who transcribed and translated in-terviews We are especially grateful to the farmers who generouslycontributed their time effort and hospitality

User Research Towards a Market Information Service ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India

REFERENCES[1] RML Agtech 2018 FarmBee httpsfarmbeein Accessed 2018-07-18[2] Yaw Anokwa Thomas N Smyth Divya Ramachandran Jahanzeb Sherwani Yael

Schwartzman Rowena Luk Melissa Ho Neema Moraveji and Brian DeRenzi2009 Stories from the field Reflections on HCI4D experiences InformationTechnologies amp International Development 5 4 (2009)

[3] GSM Association 2013 Mobile Market Information for Agri VAS Operators AQuick Start Guide

[4] World Bank 2012 Information and communications for development 2012Maximizing mobile httpgoworldbankorg0J2CTQTYP0 Accessed 2018-07-18

[5] Heike Baumuumlller 2015 Enhancing smallholder market participation throughmobile phone-enabled services The case of M-Farm in Kenya The ElectronicJournal of Information Systems in Developing Countries 68 (2015) 1ndash16 Issue 6

[6] Heike Baumuumlller 2017 The LittleWe Know An Exploratory Literature Review onthe Utility of Mobile Phone-Enabled Services for Smallholder Farmers Journal ofInternational Development 30 1 (2017) 134ndash154 httpsdoiorg101002jid3314

[7] Raymond A Boadi Richard Boateng Robert Hinson and Robert A Opoku2007 Preliminary Insights into M-commerce Adoption in Ghana InformationDevelopment 23 4 (2007) 253ndash265 httpsdoiorg1011770266666907084761

[8] Virginia Braun and Victoria Clarke 2006 Using thematic analysis in psychologyQualitative Research in Psychology 3 2 (2006) 77ndash101 httpsdoiorg1011911478088706qp063oa

[9] Jenna Burrell and Elisa Oreglia 2015 The myth of market price informationmobile phones and the application of economic knowledge in ICTD Economyand Society 44 2 (2015) 271ndash292 httpsdoiorg1010800308514720151013742

[10] Adriana Camacho and Emily Conover 2010 The Impact of Receiving Price andClimate Information in the Agricultural Sector SSRN Electronic Journal (2010)httpsdoiorg102139ssrn1755057

[11] Pierre Courtois and Julie Subervie 2014 Farmer Bargaining Power and MarketInformation Services American Journal of Agricultural Economics 97 3 (2014)953ndash977 httpsdoiorg101093ajaeaau051

[12] Nicola Dell Vidya Vaidyanathan Indrani Medhi Edward Cutrell and WilliamThies 2012 Yours is Better Participant Response Bias in HCI Proceedings ofthe 2012 ACM annual conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - CHI12 (2012) httpsdoiorg10114522076762208589

[13] Esoko 2018 Mobile and Web Apps for Data Collection and Communicationhttpswwwesokocom Accessed 2018-07-18

[14] Marcel Fafchamps and Ruth Vargas Hill 2008 Price Transmission and TraderEntry in Domestic Commodity Markets Economic Development and CulturalChange 56 4 (2008) 729ndash766 httpsdoiorg101086588155

[15] Marcel Fafchamps and Bart Minten 2012 Impact of SMS-Based AgriculturalInformation on Indian Farmers The World Bank Economic Review 26 3 (Jan 2012)383ndash414 httpsdoiorg101093wberlhr056

[16] NYU Center for Technology and Economic Development 2013 Market Informa-tion Systems for Rural Farmers Evaluation Of Esoko MIS ndash Year 1 Results (Mar2013) httpwwwnyuctedorgarchives1108

[17] Rikin Gandhi Rajesh Veeraraghavan Kentaro Toyama and Vanaja Ramprasad2007 Digital Green Participatory video for agricultural extension 2007 Interna-tional Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Develop-ment (2007) httpsdoiorg101109ictd20074937388

[18] M Sirajul Islam and Ake Groumlnlund 2010 An agricultural market informationservice (AMIS) in Bangladesh evaluating a mobile phone based e-service in arural context Information Development 26 4 (2010) 289ndash302 httpsdoiorg10

11770266666910385556[19] R Jensen 2007 The Digital Provide Information (Technology) Market Perfor-

mance and Welfare in the South Indian Fisheries Sector The Quarterly Journalof Economics 122 3 (Jan 2007) 879ndash924 httpsdoiorg101162qjec1223879

[20] Devesh Kapur andMekhala Krishnamurthy 2014 UnderstandingMandis MarketTowns and the Dynamics of Indiarsquos Rural and Urban Transformations Center forthe Advanced Study of India Working Papers Series F-35007-INC-1 (2014)

[21] Sriganesh Lokanathan Harsha De Silva and Iran Fernando 2011 2 Price trans-parency in agricultural produce markets Sri Lanka Strengthening Rural Liveli-hoods (2011) 15ndash32 httpsdoiorg1033629781780440361002

[22] Loop 2018 Loop Connecting Farmers to Markets httpsloopapporg Accessed2018-07-18

[23] M-Farm Ltd 2018 mFarm httpsmfarmcoke Accessed 2018-07-18[24] Pierre R Meacuterel Richard J Sexton and Aya Suzuki 2009 Optimal Invest-

ment in Transportation Infrastructure When Middlemen Have Market Power ADeveloping-Country Analysis American Journal of Agricultural Economics 91 2(2009) 462ndash476 httpsdoiorg101111j1467-8276200801245x

[25] Eduardo Nakasone 2013 The role of price information in agricultural marketsexperimental evidence from rural Peru In Agricultural amp Applied EconomicsAssociationrsquos 2013 AAEA amp CAES Joint Annual Meeting

[26] Ministry of Health and Government of India Family Welfare 2017 NationalFamily Health Survey 2015-2016 (NFHS-4)

[27] Census of India 2011 List of states with Population Sex Ratio and LiteracyCensus 2011 httpwwwcensus2011coinstatesphp

[28] Martin T Orne 1962 On the social psychology of the psychological experi-ment With particular reference to demand characteristics and their implicationsAmerican Psychologist 17 11 (1962) 776ndash783 httpsdoiorg101037h0043424

[29] Janaki Srinivasan and Jenna Burrell 2013 Revisiting the fishers of Kerala IndiaProceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Information and Commu-nication Technologies and Development Full Papers - ICTD 13 - volume 1 (2013)httpsdoiorg10114525166042516618

[30] George J Stigler 1976 The Economics of Information Lecture Notes in Economicsand Mathematical Systems Mathematical Models in Marketing (1976) 272ndash275httpsdoiorg101007978-3-642-51565-1_86

[31] Joseph E Stiglitz 1989 Chapter 13 Imperfect information in the product marketHandbook of Industrial Organization Handbook of Industrial Organization Volume1 (1989) 769ndash847 httpsdoiorg101016s1573-448x(89)01016-2

[32] Mark Tran 2013 Cassava on eBay M-Farm SMS helps Kenyarsquos farmersget better prices The Guardian (Jul 2013) httpswwwtheguardiancomglobal-development2013jul04m-farm-kenya-food-security

[33] USAID 2013 An Assessment of Market Information Systems in East Africa(May 2013)

[34] Aditya Vashistha Fabian Okeke Richard Anderson and Nicola Dell 2018 rsquoYouCan Always Do Betterrsquo The Impact of Social Proof on Participant Response BiasProceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems -CHI 18 (2018) httpsdoiorg10114531735743174126

[35] Madhubalan Viswanathan S Gajendiran and R Venkatesan 2008 Understandingand Enabling Marketplace Literacy in Subsistence Contexts The developmentof a consumer and entrepreneurial literacy educational program in South IndiaInternational Journal of Educational Development 28 (05 2008) 300ndash319 httpsdoiorg101016jijedudev200705004

[36] SusanWyche and Charles Steinfield 2015 Why Dont Farmers Use Cell Phones toAccess Market Prices Technology Affordances and Barriers to Market Informa-tion Services Adoption in Rural Kenya Information Technology for Development22 2 (2015) 320ndash333 httpsdoiorg1010800268110220151048184

User Research Towards a Market Information Service ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India

decision on prices When the volume is low I go to Dumri marketwhen itrsquos high I go to Nayabhojpur marketrdquo F5 a farmer with smallvolume regularly took a two-hour train to Patna the capital city tosell his vegetables in a retail market because it was too difficult tosell small quantities in wholesale ones Vehicle capacity presentedanother constraint during peak season insufficient vehicles wereavailable for hire so vegetables went to waste [F10]

Time and convenienceMarket trips could be immensely time-consuming for farmers and one of the biggest barriers to usingalternative markets was simply that it took too long During highproduction seasons farmers commonly went to market every 1ndash3 days [F2 F6 F8] Traveling to distant markets was reported tobe a major time investment some farmers reported making tripswith 2ndash4 hours of transport time each way [F2 F5] and sometimestraveling the whole night [F4 A2]

Once at the market they often waited for traders to buy theirproduce which on good days took 30 to 60 minutes [F1 F6] How-ever during high production season the sales often took muchlonger Farmers reported spending 3ndash5 hours to sell their produce[F6 F8] F1 said ldquoWhen there is a lot of harvest sometimes it takesthe whole day to sellrdquo

Some farmers reported selling to farm-gate traders because ofconvenience Farm-gate traders often supplied labor to handle thecutting packing and other processing this saved the time andhassle of going to the market [F3 F5 F10] F3 explained ldquoNow thatthese people do it I just give it to them I could not manage witheverything I am growing oldrdquo Many farmers also cited convenienceand time savings as reasons for using Loop [F3 F5 F7 F8 F9]

Unfamiliarity with newmarkets Farmers reported that lackof familiarity with new markets was a significant barrier againsttrying them Diversity in market structures and operations madeselling in a new market a daunting task and missteps could lead tobig losses For example A6 shared why some farmers were hesitantto try new markets ldquoIf farmers have to go to a distant market on ahot day and the stock is unprepared they might reach there late Ifthey reach late the market will be down by then Then who will taketheir stock He [the agent] will say lsquoyou have come so latersquo rdquo

Several farmers stressed the importance of gathering informationabout a new market before bringing vegetables there to sell such aswhich commission agents were good howmuch volume the marketcould handle who the major traders were whether vegetables camefrom outside which vegetables sold well and the peak operatingtimes throughout the year [F1 F4 A2 A4 A6] When asked whatadvice he would offer to other farmers A2 replied ldquoThe farmersneed to go to the markets and study the customers prices and qualityof harvest Without studying and experiencing it one cannot learnrdquoHe later told us ldquoThey should have a trusting relationship with thecommission agents and should know about the marketrsquos operationssuch as rates and processes all these things so they can handle themarketrsquos intricacies and fetch good prices Farmers should be informedabout the markets well before going If farmers are not well-informedand only make decisions on the basis of prices it will not be goodbecause every market has different operationsrdquo

In-market connections Participants told us that having con-nections in a market made selling produce much easier by providinginformation and help [F1 F4 A2 A4 A6] We heard several storiesof farmers trying new markets for the first time because they had

formed a connection with a commission agent [F1 F2 F8 F11] F11told us that he had never sold at any distant markets before gettinga mobile phone and he recently started going to the distant Bhastiand Bharadpur markets after getting phone numbers of commissionagents there from a local trader Similarly F2 tried going to thefar-off Sikanderpur market after meeting a Sikanderpur commissionagent who had come to his village Apart from just informationconnections were valuable for other support During our interviewof F1 another farmer interjected ldquoWhen we go to Buxar market weknow the commission agents If they are taking money then we canfight for our money because we know them With a different marketwe donrsquot know the commission agents we donrsquot have any power toexercise there So we donrsquot prefer those marketsrdquo

Relationships with commission agents Some farmers re-ported long-lasting relationships with commission agents onlyselling with 1 or 2 consistently [F1 F2] In these relationships com-mission agents often expected loyalty since collecting big volumesfrom many farmers was important for attracting traders F4 toldus that a farmer changing agents created a bad reputation in thatmarket and agents were less likely to extend credit or value thatfarmersrsquo business ldquoAll goes wrong if you keep switching agentsrdquo

Many interview subjects stressed the importance of trust be-tween farmers and commission agents [F1 F2 F4 A2 G1 G2 G3]because they are mutually dependent on each other to maintaintheir reputations exchange accurate information and uphold dealsCommission agents told us about their efforts to build relationshipswith farmers such as calling to ask about their families [G3] andgiving farmers gifts like tea Sprite and flashlights [G2]

Sometimes despite these relationships with commission agentsfarmers sold to other traders under the table For example F1 re-ported that sometimes traders would wait on the road outside themarket and approach farmers before they entered to avoid payingthe agentsrsquo commissions

Other farmers reported no such commitments to commissionagents and sold freely via different traders and agents based on priceonly [F7 F8 F9 A5] We heard many responses like ldquoWhicheveragent is giving good prices we prefer to go with themrsquo [F9] A5 toldus assertively ldquoWe want the price we donrsquot want a relationshiprdquo

Risk We encountered different attitudes towards risk-takingduring our interviews We speculate that wealthier farmers havebetter access to markets because they are more comfortable takingrisks with a financial safety cushion to fall on when things do notwork out Poor farmers are probably more constrained more oftenchoosing what they perceive as the safest option

Some farmers discussed price crashes frankly seeming to acceptthem as a part of doing business [F4 F5 F6 F8 A2] For exampleF5 stated ldquoYeah I have had to return home with the stock If today Iget a bad rate I might get a good rate tomorrowrdquo

Farmers F1 and F2 on the other hand appeared much morehesitant to take risks When asked why they seldom tried marketsother than Buxar they expressed concerns about spending toomuchto go to those markets without any guarantee that they would getgood rates and they recounted stories about visiting new marketsin the past and finding worse prices

The infrastructure of vegetable marketing in Bihar distributesrisk between all the different actors Commission agents and tradersabsorb some of the farmersrsquo risk A main benefit of selling through

ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India Ziegler Garg Tiwary Vashistha Heimerl

commission agents is that they usually pay farmers cash immedi-ately when the produce is sold to a trader Payments from tradersare sometimes delayed [F4 F9] since traders send cash throughintermediaries or pay only after selling the crops at another marketwhich usually takes 1ndash2 days but can take much longer when pricescrash [G1 G3] Commission agents in this way insulate farmersfrom price crash risks Local farm-gate traders often pay less thanmarket rates but in return they bare the transportation cost andthe risk of price fluctuations F3 told us ldquoI am too old to take care ofthe market things traders are a luxury because they take the riskrdquo

Credit After taking loans from commission agents at plantingtime some farmers were obligated to sell their vegetables throughthose agents [F1 F4 G2] Commission agent G2 explained thatwhen selling vegetables for farmers who have credit from him hewithheld |1ndash2 per kg of the payment for 2ndash3 days and then paid therest to the farmer only when he returned to sell more vegetables F4told us that commission agents sometimes offered him credit buthe refused so that he was not obligated to sell his produce throughthem All three commission agents who we interviewed insistedthat they did not charge interest on loans to farmers instead theyused the loans as a way to create business F1 however told us thathe payed |20 per |100 per month in interest to his agent

From our interviews the prevalence of these credit relationshipsbetween farmers and commission agents was unclear Only oneparticipant (F1) reported taking credit from agents However com-mission agent G2 told us that he gave credit to about 20 of every 100farmers he dealt with usually in amounts of |10000ndash|20000 F2told us that his commission agent gave him |500ndash|2000 advancesfor personal expenses but not larger loans Participants reportedhaving access to various other sources of credit such as local mon-eylenders [F6 F8] relatives and neighbors [F7 F10] None of thefarmers reported getting credit from vegetable traders

Danger and Bribes The peak activity of most big markets is inthe early morning and when the market is far away farmers haveto travel at night to reach in time Many farmers in our study areaexpressed reluctance to travel at night because of danger Somefarmers worried about getting robbed [F6] F2 and F10 stoppedgoing to distant markets because of police bribes F10 shared ldquoTherewas a problem with the police that resulted in a hassle to go there Onthe way there are two police vans by the road in the night checkpointand they ask for |200ndash500 There are about 10ndash15 such checkpointsYou end up giving about |3000 for the vehicle and about |1500 tothe police so any difference in market prices is a loss to usrdquo

45 Summary of InterviewsParticipants reported diverse marketing strategies some farmersregularly called connections to sell vegetables at many differentmarkets while others were bound to a specific commission agentin their local market or opted for the convenience of local tradersWe recorded reports of many but not all farmers using price in-formation to choose markets and negotiate with traders as well astraders using mobile phones for arbitrage between markets

We collected anecdotal reports of changes in markets aroundthe same time that mobile phones became widespread in the areaincluding increased numbers of traders shifts in market activity

and stabilization of prices Other factors influencing farmersrsquo mar-keting decisions included market capacity production volume timeunfamiliarity personal relationships risk credit and danger

5 MARKET INFO APP PAPER PROTOTYPESTo explore which market-access factors could be addressable withanMI service we next conducted a cognitive walkthrough and light-weight usability study of a series of low-fidelity system prototypesbuilt off of Loop and using Loop aggregators

As seen in our interviews and demonstrated by other Loop de-ployments Loop farmers often accessed previously-impracticalmarkets due to time savings and the pooling of transport costs Wethus focused on the use case of farmers considering new unfamiliarmarkets and the subset of market-access barriers that we believedto be most addressable via an information service including marketcontacts price volatility market capacity and transportation

51 MethodsWe designed four iterations of paper prototypes and tested theprototypes with nine Loop aggregators Sessions were conductedin the Buxar and Samastipur districts of Bihar Most participantswere selected using a convenience sampling methodology for be-ing present while conducting other Loop-related business a fewwere selected for being engaged Loop users Participants typicallyhad more education than other farmers all were literate and hadexperience using smartphones Many participants already had ex-perience with RampD processes having previously participated inexperimental Loop pilots

For testing we asked participants to imagine a hypothetical situa-tion in which they had to choose between unfamiliar markets to selltheir vegetables and navigate the paper prototypes withmocked-updata to find information and make a decision We carefully observedparticipants while they interacted with the prototypes and askedthem to speak their thought processes aloud Using the prototypesas a conversation piece we held open-ended conversations withthe participants about how to improve the designs and what otherfeatures they would like

Since prior work has noted high levels of response bias whenevaluating prototypes in HCI4D contexts [2 12 28] we used theldquosocial proofrdquo method to prime participants finding it surprisinglyeffective for soliciting critical feedback [34] We told participants atthe onset of the evaluation sessions that previous participants hadfound the screens confusing did not understand what the buttonsdid and did not find the features useful

52 FindingsHere we present our results that suggest avenues for addressingsome of the market-access barriers uncovered in our user research

Price stability andmarket capacity To help users know howstable or volatile prices are at a particular market we experimentedwith interfaces for showing historic prices We asked four aggrega-tors how many days of past prices they wanted to see and everyparticipant consistently answered that they wanted to see pricesonly for the last 2ndash4 daysParticipants reported that showing moredates would be unnecessary they could not predict future pricesfrom past prices and assessing price stability was the only use

User Research Towards a Market Information Service ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India

(a) Graph confusing (b) Dots unhelpful (c) Preferred

Figure 3 Presentations of past market prices to show mar-ket volatility All users preferred 3c (Figures are translatedfrom Hindi to English for this paper)

Graphs and visualizations are frequently used to show historicprices in many other contexts but we found them not to be useful inthis application Bar graphs (Figure 3a) confused participants othervisualizations (3b) were easier to understand but participants stillreported finding them unhelpful and unnecessarily complicated Allparticipants preferred the simplicity of seeing the prices in tabularform with no visualization (3c)

To communicate market capacity we showed screens labelingmarkets as lsquobig marketrsquo lsquomedium marketrsquo and lsquosmall marketrsquo show-ing these labels for multiple markets together so users could usefamiliar markets as references for unfamiliar ones (Figure 4a) Mostusers responded positively to this feature but we received feedbackthat some market sizes varied by season and that we should notewhich markets had outside traders who came seasonally

Transport costs During the usability tests with hypotheticalscenarios we asked users to find the market with the best payoffafter factoring in transportation costs We watched several usersstruggle to calculate payoff estimations having to keep track ofmany different numbers We considered awkward payoff-calculatorinterfaces that required significant data entry from users but wefound it more effective to simply show the cost of sending a pickuptruck to each market side-by-side with the prices (Figure 4a) Sinceonly one or two crops usually dominate a dayrsquos market trip thismock gave users the necessary information conveniently in onescreen Farmers commonly hire many different types of vehicleswith different costs but we opted to show only the cost of a pickuptruck on this screen because for distant markets it is rarely cost-effective to send any vehicle smaller than a pickup

Contacts Since many farmers cited the lack of contacts as abarrier to exploring newmarkets we showed a simple contacts pagefor commission agents at each market (see Figure 4b) We askedparticipants how they would choose which agent to contact anddiscussed options such as a rating system for agents or showingbiographical information such as vegetable specialties Several toldus that when scoping out a new market they looked for agentswith the most customers since that meant they were likely to begood agents Some participants stated that they would simply preferLoop to recommend a commission agent to them and that theywould trust the recommendation In addition to contact details ofcommission agents several participants told us that they wouldlike contacts of Loop farmers who frequented other markets sothey could learn from each other

We learned through this exercise that some factorsmdashincludingprice volatility transportation and payoff calculation and agent

(a) Mock prices screen forone crop showing marketsizes and transport costs

(b) Mock screen showingcommission agents for amarket

Figure 4 Example screen mocks shown to participants

contactsmdashare addressable through a mobile app or similar serviceHowever other important information for vegetable marketing iscomplex and difficult to capture in the structures of an MI serviceeg specific quality and processing information for each crop ateach market or the fact that one particular market shifts to nighttime for several months during the winter These factors may bebetter addressable through other media

6 DISCUSSIONWe set out to understand the potential benefits and limits of a mar-ket information service in Buxar Bihar Results from our interviewsand prototype exercises show how the arrival of mobile phoneshas brought changes to Buxarrsquos vegetable markets and examinethe many factors that influence farmersrsquo marketing behaviors Weend with a discussion of design considerations for MI services andother strategies to address market-access barriers

61 Information Asymmetry and ScarcityConsistent with the theories of information asymmetry and infor-mation scarcity we found evidence in the Buxar district showingthat conditions seemed favorable for improved market efficiencydue to better availability of price information Farmers frequentlyused their mobile phones to get price information from differentmarkets some using the prices to choose a market and negotiatewith traders After the widespread adoption of mobile phones in thearea farmers reported market changes consistent with the informa-tion scarcity theory with more traders moving vegetables betweenmarkets and fewer price crashes We also heard reports of farmersusing price information to negotiate higher prices from traders con-sistent with the information asymmetry theory Especially whencompared to other research that did not find such conditions inother locations [9 29] our work reinforces the importance of local-ization in the studies of MI services

62 Usefulness of an MI ServiceMany farmers used phone calls to access prices and other marketinformation from their social connections Would designing a dedi-cated MI service offer substantially more benefits to farmers than

ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India Ziegler Garg Tiwary Vashistha Heimerl

simply having mobile phones alone Our findings indicate severalpotential benefits in favor of the former Marketing is hugely time-consuming for farmers and an MI service could eliminate the needto make calls to multiple markets Not every farmer has marketconnections for checking prices over the phone and an MI servicecould reduce this barrier An MI service could also help to providediscretion and avoid social obligations for farmers such as F1 whoreported feeling obligated to sell to a certain commission agent if hecalled that agent to check the prices Commission agents sometimesquote misleading rates to farmers but an MI service could providemore reliable information

However many barriers to market access are simply not address-able by an information system like as danger time and credit Forsome other factorsmdashlike price volatility and unfamiliaritymdashan infor-mation system could provide some assistance but the complexityof vegetable marketing presents challenges

63 Future Work and Design ConsiderationsApart from the information scarcity of prices we demonstratedthrough our interviews the many other barriers that keep farm-ers from accessing other markets such as personal relationshipsprice volatility physical danger credit time unfamiliarity and lackof marketing skills Although we probed some of these barrierswith early-stage prototypes much more work is needed to evalu-ate which barriers are actually addressable using information andcommunication technologies

From our interview and prototyping work we are optimistic thatincluding some non-price information into an MI service could behelpful in this region We found positive reception for indicationsof market capacity price variability and contacts of commissionagents and traders at unfamiliar markets Although the prototypingexercises were rewarding to examine factors and their presenta-tions we will be able to answer many questions only by testingwith full implementations For example although many farmersindicated they would be comfortable calling unfamiliar traders andcommission agents in new markets only a deployment could revealwhether farmers and aggregators would indeed use this feature

We found that farmers often share prices around their villagesand make joint marketing decisions However most existing MI ser-vices target individuals There is an opportunity for more researchabout collaborative uses of market information

Especially because fewwomen can be found in Buxarrsquos wholesalevegetable markets additional work is needed to better understandthe roles and needs of women engaged in vegetable marketing

Our participants showed striking discrepancies in marketingskills some were incredibly savvy experienced marketers whogave us many tips and leveraged connections at dozens of differentmarkets many other farmers were inexperienced constrained andrisk-averse Because of the richness and complexity of vegetablemarketing strategies gaps in these skills are probably not well ad-dressable by a market information service and better suited to othermedia For example it may be fruitful to draw upon Vishwanathanet alrsquos work on consumer marketplace skills [35] They developeda participatory in-person market literacy course in south Indiathat covers topics like checking weights understanding price no-tations developing relationships with merchants and customers

basic accounting and avoiding credit and associated costs Alongthis vein some Loop farmers have suggested organizing lsquofield tripsrsquoto different markets to learn how they work Similarly multimediaapproachesmdashsuch as mFarmrsquos experiments in using community-ledvideo education to help users learn to use their MI service [36]mdashcould be expanded to cover more marketing skills

64 Study BiasesOur sample was not random and not fully representative of thearea All farmers we interviewed used the Loop service and likelyhad some different characteristics relative to non-users Notablyour sample included no women All participating farmers also usedLoop as a source of income and they likely did not want to sayanything that could damage that relationship

65 Ongoing Work by LoopAt the time of writing Loop has started early-stage pilots of anSMS- and IVR-based market price service and trials of a smartphoneapplication built from our prototypes (Section 5) Through theseprototypes we hope to build an MI service that can change themarketing behaviors of Loop farmers solicit farmer feedback aboutfeatures and further develop our user interfaces

Loop has other ongoing projects to address market-access barri-ers outside the reach of an information system One project coordi-nates multiple villages for more cost-effective transportation Toaddress market unfamiliarity Loop has a pilot to explore how partic-ipatory user-generated videos [17] could be leveraged to familiarizeusers with aspects of different markets for example demonstratingthe best way to cut cauliflower for a particular destination Ongo-ing pilots with digital payments allow farmers to send produce todistant markets without the risk and delay of sending cash back

7 CONCLUSIONWe have shown that farmers in Buxar commonly use mobile phonesto acquire price information for bargaining and market choice sug-gesting the usefulness of a market information service to reduceinformation scarcity and information asymmetry We have reportedfactors that limit the usefulness of market price information includ-ing time and convenience unfamiliarity with new markets lackof connections personal relationships price crashes productionvolume attitudes towards risk credit relationships and physicaldanger and we have presented further results from exploratoryuser studies for addressing specific barriers to market access

8 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSThe authors gratefully acknowledge the entire Loop team especiallythose members who contributed to this project Aditya Sethi EricaArya Ashok Kumar Bipin Raj Divish Gupta Abhishek Lodha andS Kaushik We are thankful to our anonymous reviewers who pro-vided important feedback and to Ishan Sapru Chrungoo KonarakRatnakar and Bharat Agarwal who transcribed and translated in-terviews We are especially grateful to the farmers who generouslycontributed their time effort and hospitality

User Research Towards a Market Information Service ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India

REFERENCES[1] RML Agtech 2018 FarmBee httpsfarmbeein Accessed 2018-07-18[2] Yaw Anokwa Thomas N Smyth Divya Ramachandran Jahanzeb Sherwani Yael

Schwartzman Rowena Luk Melissa Ho Neema Moraveji and Brian DeRenzi2009 Stories from the field Reflections on HCI4D experiences InformationTechnologies amp International Development 5 4 (2009)

[3] GSM Association 2013 Mobile Market Information for Agri VAS Operators AQuick Start Guide

[4] World Bank 2012 Information and communications for development 2012Maximizing mobile httpgoworldbankorg0J2CTQTYP0 Accessed 2018-07-18

[5] Heike Baumuumlller 2015 Enhancing smallholder market participation throughmobile phone-enabled services The case of M-Farm in Kenya The ElectronicJournal of Information Systems in Developing Countries 68 (2015) 1ndash16 Issue 6

[6] Heike Baumuumlller 2017 The LittleWe Know An Exploratory Literature Review onthe Utility of Mobile Phone-Enabled Services for Smallholder Farmers Journal ofInternational Development 30 1 (2017) 134ndash154 httpsdoiorg101002jid3314

[7] Raymond A Boadi Richard Boateng Robert Hinson and Robert A Opoku2007 Preliminary Insights into M-commerce Adoption in Ghana InformationDevelopment 23 4 (2007) 253ndash265 httpsdoiorg1011770266666907084761

[8] Virginia Braun and Victoria Clarke 2006 Using thematic analysis in psychologyQualitative Research in Psychology 3 2 (2006) 77ndash101 httpsdoiorg1011911478088706qp063oa

[9] Jenna Burrell and Elisa Oreglia 2015 The myth of market price informationmobile phones and the application of economic knowledge in ICTD Economyand Society 44 2 (2015) 271ndash292 httpsdoiorg1010800308514720151013742

[10] Adriana Camacho and Emily Conover 2010 The Impact of Receiving Price andClimate Information in the Agricultural Sector SSRN Electronic Journal (2010)httpsdoiorg102139ssrn1755057

[11] Pierre Courtois and Julie Subervie 2014 Farmer Bargaining Power and MarketInformation Services American Journal of Agricultural Economics 97 3 (2014)953ndash977 httpsdoiorg101093ajaeaau051

[12] Nicola Dell Vidya Vaidyanathan Indrani Medhi Edward Cutrell and WilliamThies 2012 Yours is Better Participant Response Bias in HCI Proceedings ofthe 2012 ACM annual conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - CHI12 (2012) httpsdoiorg10114522076762208589

[13] Esoko 2018 Mobile and Web Apps for Data Collection and Communicationhttpswwwesokocom Accessed 2018-07-18

[14] Marcel Fafchamps and Ruth Vargas Hill 2008 Price Transmission and TraderEntry in Domestic Commodity Markets Economic Development and CulturalChange 56 4 (2008) 729ndash766 httpsdoiorg101086588155

[15] Marcel Fafchamps and Bart Minten 2012 Impact of SMS-Based AgriculturalInformation on Indian Farmers The World Bank Economic Review 26 3 (Jan 2012)383ndash414 httpsdoiorg101093wberlhr056

[16] NYU Center for Technology and Economic Development 2013 Market Informa-tion Systems for Rural Farmers Evaluation Of Esoko MIS ndash Year 1 Results (Mar2013) httpwwwnyuctedorgarchives1108

[17] Rikin Gandhi Rajesh Veeraraghavan Kentaro Toyama and Vanaja Ramprasad2007 Digital Green Participatory video for agricultural extension 2007 Interna-tional Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Develop-ment (2007) httpsdoiorg101109ictd20074937388

[18] M Sirajul Islam and Ake Groumlnlund 2010 An agricultural market informationservice (AMIS) in Bangladesh evaluating a mobile phone based e-service in arural context Information Development 26 4 (2010) 289ndash302 httpsdoiorg10

11770266666910385556[19] R Jensen 2007 The Digital Provide Information (Technology) Market Perfor-

mance and Welfare in the South Indian Fisheries Sector The Quarterly Journalof Economics 122 3 (Jan 2007) 879ndash924 httpsdoiorg101162qjec1223879

[20] Devesh Kapur andMekhala Krishnamurthy 2014 UnderstandingMandis MarketTowns and the Dynamics of Indiarsquos Rural and Urban Transformations Center forthe Advanced Study of India Working Papers Series F-35007-INC-1 (2014)

[21] Sriganesh Lokanathan Harsha De Silva and Iran Fernando 2011 2 Price trans-parency in agricultural produce markets Sri Lanka Strengthening Rural Liveli-hoods (2011) 15ndash32 httpsdoiorg1033629781780440361002

[22] Loop 2018 Loop Connecting Farmers to Markets httpsloopapporg Accessed2018-07-18

[23] M-Farm Ltd 2018 mFarm httpsmfarmcoke Accessed 2018-07-18[24] Pierre R Meacuterel Richard J Sexton and Aya Suzuki 2009 Optimal Invest-

ment in Transportation Infrastructure When Middlemen Have Market Power ADeveloping-Country Analysis American Journal of Agricultural Economics 91 2(2009) 462ndash476 httpsdoiorg101111j1467-8276200801245x

[25] Eduardo Nakasone 2013 The role of price information in agricultural marketsexperimental evidence from rural Peru In Agricultural amp Applied EconomicsAssociationrsquos 2013 AAEA amp CAES Joint Annual Meeting

[26] Ministry of Health and Government of India Family Welfare 2017 NationalFamily Health Survey 2015-2016 (NFHS-4)

[27] Census of India 2011 List of states with Population Sex Ratio and LiteracyCensus 2011 httpwwwcensus2011coinstatesphp

[28] Martin T Orne 1962 On the social psychology of the psychological experi-ment With particular reference to demand characteristics and their implicationsAmerican Psychologist 17 11 (1962) 776ndash783 httpsdoiorg101037h0043424

[29] Janaki Srinivasan and Jenna Burrell 2013 Revisiting the fishers of Kerala IndiaProceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Information and Commu-nication Technologies and Development Full Papers - ICTD 13 - volume 1 (2013)httpsdoiorg10114525166042516618

[30] George J Stigler 1976 The Economics of Information Lecture Notes in Economicsand Mathematical Systems Mathematical Models in Marketing (1976) 272ndash275httpsdoiorg101007978-3-642-51565-1_86

[31] Joseph E Stiglitz 1989 Chapter 13 Imperfect information in the product marketHandbook of Industrial Organization Handbook of Industrial Organization Volume1 (1989) 769ndash847 httpsdoiorg101016s1573-448x(89)01016-2

[32] Mark Tran 2013 Cassava on eBay M-Farm SMS helps Kenyarsquos farmersget better prices The Guardian (Jul 2013) httpswwwtheguardiancomglobal-development2013jul04m-farm-kenya-food-security

[33] USAID 2013 An Assessment of Market Information Systems in East Africa(May 2013)

[34] Aditya Vashistha Fabian Okeke Richard Anderson and Nicola Dell 2018 rsquoYouCan Always Do Betterrsquo The Impact of Social Proof on Participant Response BiasProceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems -CHI 18 (2018) httpsdoiorg10114531735743174126

[35] Madhubalan Viswanathan S Gajendiran and R Venkatesan 2008 Understandingand Enabling Marketplace Literacy in Subsistence Contexts The developmentof a consumer and entrepreneurial literacy educational program in South IndiaInternational Journal of Educational Development 28 (05 2008) 300ndash319 httpsdoiorg101016jijedudev200705004

[36] SusanWyche and Charles Steinfield 2015 Why Dont Farmers Use Cell Phones toAccess Market Prices Technology Affordances and Barriers to Market Informa-tion Services Adoption in Rural Kenya Information Technology for Development22 2 (2015) 320ndash333 httpsdoiorg1010800268110220151048184

ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India Ziegler Garg Tiwary Vashistha Heimerl

commission agents is that they usually pay farmers cash immedi-ately when the produce is sold to a trader Payments from tradersare sometimes delayed [F4 F9] since traders send cash throughintermediaries or pay only after selling the crops at another marketwhich usually takes 1ndash2 days but can take much longer when pricescrash [G1 G3] Commission agents in this way insulate farmersfrom price crash risks Local farm-gate traders often pay less thanmarket rates but in return they bare the transportation cost andthe risk of price fluctuations F3 told us ldquoI am too old to take care ofthe market things traders are a luxury because they take the riskrdquo

Credit After taking loans from commission agents at plantingtime some farmers were obligated to sell their vegetables throughthose agents [F1 F4 G2] Commission agent G2 explained thatwhen selling vegetables for farmers who have credit from him hewithheld |1ndash2 per kg of the payment for 2ndash3 days and then paid therest to the farmer only when he returned to sell more vegetables F4told us that commission agents sometimes offered him credit buthe refused so that he was not obligated to sell his produce throughthem All three commission agents who we interviewed insistedthat they did not charge interest on loans to farmers instead theyused the loans as a way to create business F1 however told us thathe payed |20 per |100 per month in interest to his agent

From our interviews the prevalence of these credit relationshipsbetween farmers and commission agents was unclear Only oneparticipant (F1) reported taking credit from agents However com-mission agent G2 told us that he gave credit to about 20 of every 100farmers he dealt with usually in amounts of |10000ndash|20000 F2told us that his commission agent gave him |500ndash|2000 advancesfor personal expenses but not larger loans Participants reportedhaving access to various other sources of credit such as local mon-eylenders [F6 F8] relatives and neighbors [F7 F10] None of thefarmers reported getting credit from vegetable traders

Danger and Bribes The peak activity of most big markets is inthe early morning and when the market is far away farmers haveto travel at night to reach in time Many farmers in our study areaexpressed reluctance to travel at night because of danger Somefarmers worried about getting robbed [F6] F2 and F10 stoppedgoing to distant markets because of police bribes F10 shared ldquoTherewas a problem with the police that resulted in a hassle to go there Onthe way there are two police vans by the road in the night checkpointand they ask for |200ndash500 There are about 10ndash15 such checkpointsYou end up giving about |3000 for the vehicle and about |1500 tothe police so any difference in market prices is a loss to usrdquo

45 Summary of InterviewsParticipants reported diverse marketing strategies some farmersregularly called connections to sell vegetables at many differentmarkets while others were bound to a specific commission agentin their local market or opted for the convenience of local tradersWe recorded reports of many but not all farmers using price in-formation to choose markets and negotiate with traders as well astraders using mobile phones for arbitrage between markets

We collected anecdotal reports of changes in markets aroundthe same time that mobile phones became widespread in the areaincluding increased numbers of traders shifts in market activity

and stabilization of prices Other factors influencing farmersrsquo mar-keting decisions included market capacity production volume timeunfamiliarity personal relationships risk credit and danger

5 MARKET INFO APP PAPER PROTOTYPESTo explore which market-access factors could be addressable withanMI service we next conducted a cognitive walkthrough and light-weight usability study of a series of low-fidelity system prototypesbuilt off of Loop and using Loop aggregators

As seen in our interviews and demonstrated by other Loop de-ployments Loop farmers often accessed previously-impracticalmarkets due to time savings and the pooling of transport costs Wethus focused on the use case of farmers considering new unfamiliarmarkets and the subset of market-access barriers that we believedto be most addressable via an information service including marketcontacts price volatility market capacity and transportation

51 MethodsWe designed four iterations of paper prototypes and tested theprototypes with nine Loop aggregators Sessions were conductedin the Buxar and Samastipur districts of Bihar Most participantswere selected using a convenience sampling methodology for be-ing present while conducting other Loop-related business a fewwere selected for being engaged Loop users Participants typicallyhad more education than other farmers all were literate and hadexperience using smartphones Many participants already had ex-perience with RampD processes having previously participated inexperimental Loop pilots

For testing we asked participants to imagine a hypothetical situa-tion in which they had to choose between unfamiliar markets to selltheir vegetables and navigate the paper prototypes withmocked-updata to find information and make a decision We carefully observedparticipants while they interacted with the prototypes and askedthem to speak their thought processes aloud Using the prototypesas a conversation piece we held open-ended conversations withthe participants about how to improve the designs and what otherfeatures they would like

Since prior work has noted high levels of response bias whenevaluating prototypes in HCI4D contexts [2 12 28] we used theldquosocial proofrdquo method to prime participants finding it surprisinglyeffective for soliciting critical feedback [34] We told participants atthe onset of the evaluation sessions that previous participants hadfound the screens confusing did not understand what the buttonsdid and did not find the features useful

52 FindingsHere we present our results that suggest avenues for addressingsome of the market-access barriers uncovered in our user research

Price stability andmarket capacity To help users know howstable or volatile prices are at a particular market we experimentedwith interfaces for showing historic prices We asked four aggrega-tors how many days of past prices they wanted to see and everyparticipant consistently answered that they wanted to see pricesonly for the last 2ndash4 daysParticipants reported that showing moredates would be unnecessary they could not predict future pricesfrom past prices and assessing price stability was the only use

User Research Towards a Market Information Service ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India

(a) Graph confusing (b) Dots unhelpful (c) Preferred

Figure 3 Presentations of past market prices to show mar-ket volatility All users preferred 3c (Figures are translatedfrom Hindi to English for this paper)

Graphs and visualizations are frequently used to show historicprices in many other contexts but we found them not to be useful inthis application Bar graphs (Figure 3a) confused participants othervisualizations (3b) were easier to understand but participants stillreported finding them unhelpful and unnecessarily complicated Allparticipants preferred the simplicity of seeing the prices in tabularform with no visualization (3c)

To communicate market capacity we showed screens labelingmarkets as lsquobig marketrsquo lsquomedium marketrsquo and lsquosmall marketrsquo show-ing these labels for multiple markets together so users could usefamiliar markets as references for unfamiliar ones (Figure 4a) Mostusers responded positively to this feature but we received feedbackthat some market sizes varied by season and that we should notewhich markets had outside traders who came seasonally

Transport costs During the usability tests with hypotheticalscenarios we asked users to find the market with the best payoffafter factoring in transportation costs We watched several usersstruggle to calculate payoff estimations having to keep track ofmany different numbers We considered awkward payoff-calculatorinterfaces that required significant data entry from users but wefound it more effective to simply show the cost of sending a pickuptruck to each market side-by-side with the prices (Figure 4a) Sinceonly one or two crops usually dominate a dayrsquos market trip thismock gave users the necessary information conveniently in onescreen Farmers commonly hire many different types of vehicleswith different costs but we opted to show only the cost of a pickuptruck on this screen because for distant markets it is rarely cost-effective to send any vehicle smaller than a pickup

Contacts Since many farmers cited the lack of contacts as abarrier to exploring newmarkets we showed a simple contacts pagefor commission agents at each market (see Figure 4b) We askedparticipants how they would choose which agent to contact anddiscussed options such as a rating system for agents or showingbiographical information such as vegetable specialties Several toldus that when scoping out a new market they looked for agentswith the most customers since that meant they were likely to begood agents Some participants stated that they would simply preferLoop to recommend a commission agent to them and that theywould trust the recommendation In addition to contact details ofcommission agents several participants told us that they wouldlike contacts of Loop farmers who frequented other markets sothey could learn from each other

We learned through this exercise that some factorsmdashincludingprice volatility transportation and payoff calculation and agent

(a) Mock prices screen forone crop showing marketsizes and transport costs

(b) Mock screen showingcommission agents for amarket

Figure 4 Example screen mocks shown to participants

contactsmdashare addressable through a mobile app or similar serviceHowever other important information for vegetable marketing iscomplex and difficult to capture in the structures of an MI serviceeg specific quality and processing information for each crop ateach market or the fact that one particular market shifts to nighttime for several months during the winter These factors may bebetter addressable through other media

6 DISCUSSIONWe set out to understand the potential benefits and limits of a mar-ket information service in Buxar Bihar Results from our interviewsand prototype exercises show how the arrival of mobile phoneshas brought changes to Buxarrsquos vegetable markets and examinethe many factors that influence farmersrsquo marketing behaviors Weend with a discussion of design considerations for MI services andother strategies to address market-access barriers

61 Information Asymmetry and ScarcityConsistent with the theories of information asymmetry and infor-mation scarcity we found evidence in the Buxar district showingthat conditions seemed favorable for improved market efficiencydue to better availability of price information Farmers frequentlyused their mobile phones to get price information from differentmarkets some using the prices to choose a market and negotiatewith traders After the widespread adoption of mobile phones in thearea farmers reported market changes consistent with the informa-tion scarcity theory with more traders moving vegetables betweenmarkets and fewer price crashes We also heard reports of farmersusing price information to negotiate higher prices from traders con-sistent with the information asymmetry theory Especially whencompared to other research that did not find such conditions inother locations [9 29] our work reinforces the importance of local-ization in the studies of MI services

62 Usefulness of an MI ServiceMany farmers used phone calls to access prices and other marketinformation from their social connections Would designing a dedi-cated MI service offer substantially more benefits to farmers than

ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India Ziegler Garg Tiwary Vashistha Heimerl

simply having mobile phones alone Our findings indicate severalpotential benefits in favor of the former Marketing is hugely time-consuming for farmers and an MI service could eliminate the needto make calls to multiple markets Not every farmer has marketconnections for checking prices over the phone and an MI servicecould reduce this barrier An MI service could also help to providediscretion and avoid social obligations for farmers such as F1 whoreported feeling obligated to sell to a certain commission agent if hecalled that agent to check the prices Commission agents sometimesquote misleading rates to farmers but an MI service could providemore reliable information

However many barriers to market access are simply not address-able by an information system like as danger time and credit Forsome other factorsmdashlike price volatility and unfamiliaritymdashan infor-mation system could provide some assistance but the complexityof vegetable marketing presents challenges

63 Future Work and Design ConsiderationsApart from the information scarcity of prices we demonstratedthrough our interviews the many other barriers that keep farm-ers from accessing other markets such as personal relationshipsprice volatility physical danger credit time unfamiliarity and lackof marketing skills Although we probed some of these barrierswith early-stage prototypes much more work is needed to evalu-ate which barriers are actually addressable using information andcommunication technologies

From our interview and prototyping work we are optimistic thatincluding some non-price information into an MI service could behelpful in this region We found positive reception for indicationsof market capacity price variability and contacts of commissionagents and traders at unfamiliar markets Although the prototypingexercises were rewarding to examine factors and their presenta-tions we will be able to answer many questions only by testingwith full implementations For example although many farmersindicated they would be comfortable calling unfamiliar traders andcommission agents in new markets only a deployment could revealwhether farmers and aggregators would indeed use this feature

We found that farmers often share prices around their villagesand make joint marketing decisions However most existing MI ser-vices target individuals There is an opportunity for more researchabout collaborative uses of market information

Especially because fewwomen can be found in Buxarrsquos wholesalevegetable markets additional work is needed to better understandthe roles and needs of women engaged in vegetable marketing

Our participants showed striking discrepancies in marketingskills some were incredibly savvy experienced marketers whogave us many tips and leveraged connections at dozens of differentmarkets many other farmers were inexperienced constrained andrisk-averse Because of the richness and complexity of vegetablemarketing strategies gaps in these skills are probably not well ad-dressable by a market information service and better suited to othermedia For example it may be fruitful to draw upon Vishwanathanet alrsquos work on consumer marketplace skills [35] They developeda participatory in-person market literacy course in south Indiathat covers topics like checking weights understanding price no-tations developing relationships with merchants and customers

basic accounting and avoiding credit and associated costs Alongthis vein some Loop farmers have suggested organizing lsquofield tripsrsquoto different markets to learn how they work Similarly multimediaapproachesmdashsuch as mFarmrsquos experiments in using community-ledvideo education to help users learn to use their MI service [36]mdashcould be expanded to cover more marketing skills

64 Study BiasesOur sample was not random and not fully representative of thearea All farmers we interviewed used the Loop service and likelyhad some different characteristics relative to non-users Notablyour sample included no women All participating farmers also usedLoop as a source of income and they likely did not want to sayanything that could damage that relationship

65 Ongoing Work by LoopAt the time of writing Loop has started early-stage pilots of anSMS- and IVR-based market price service and trials of a smartphoneapplication built from our prototypes (Section 5) Through theseprototypes we hope to build an MI service that can change themarketing behaviors of Loop farmers solicit farmer feedback aboutfeatures and further develop our user interfaces

Loop has other ongoing projects to address market-access barri-ers outside the reach of an information system One project coordi-nates multiple villages for more cost-effective transportation Toaddress market unfamiliarity Loop has a pilot to explore how partic-ipatory user-generated videos [17] could be leveraged to familiarizeusers with aspects of different markets for example demonstratingthe best way to cut cauliflower for a particular destination Ongo-ing pilots with digital payments allow farmers to send produce todistant markets without the risk and delay of sending cash back

7 CONCLUSIONWe have shown that farmers in Buxar commonly use mobile phonesto acquire price information for bargaining and market choice sug-gesting the usefulness of a market information service to reduceinformation scarcity and information asymmetry We have reportedfactors that limit the usefulness of market price information includ-ing time and convenience unfamiliarity with new markets lackof connections personal relationships price crashes productionvolume attitudes towards risk credit relationships and physicaldanger and we have presented further results from exploratoryuser studies for addressing specific barriers to market access

8 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSThe authors gratefully acknowledge the entire Loop team especiallythose members who contributed to this project Aditya Sethi EricaArya Ashok Kumar Bipin Raj Divish Gupta Abhishek Lodha andS Kaushik We are thankful to our anonymous reviewers who pro-vided important feedback and to Ishan Sapru Chrungoo KonarakRatnakar and Bharat Agarwal who transcribed and translated in-terviews We are especially grateful to the farmers who generouslycontributed their time effort and hospitality

User Research Towards a Market Information Service ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India

REFERENCES[1] RML Agtech 2018 FarmBee httpsfarmbeein Accessed 2018-07-18[2] Yaw Anokwa Thomas N Smyth Divya Ramachandran Jahanzeb Sherwani Yael

Schwartzman Rowena Luk Melissa Ho Neema Moraveji and Brian DeRenzi2009 Stories from the field Reflections on HCI4D experiences InformationTechnologies amp International Development 5 4 (2009)

[3] GSM Association 2013 Mobile Market Information for Agri VAS Operators AQuick Start Guide

[4] World Bank 2012 Information and communications for development 2012Maximizing mobile httpgoworldbankorg0J2CTQTYP0 Accessed 2018-07-18

[5] Heike Baumuumlller 2015 Enhancing smallholder market participation throughmobile phone-enabled services The case of M-Farm in Kenya The ElectronicJournal of Information Systems in Developing Countries 68 (2015) 1ndash16 Issue 6

[6] Heike Baumuumlller 2017 The LittleWe Know An Exploratory Literature Review onthe Utility of Mobile Phone-Enabled Services for Smallholder Farmers Journal ofInternational Development 30 1 (2017) 134ndash154 httpsdoiorg101002jid3314

[7] Raymond A Boadi Richard Boateng Robert Hinson and Robert A Opoku2007 Preliminary Insights into M-commerce Adoption in Ghana InformationDevelopment 23 4 (2007) 253ndash265 httpsdoiorg1011770266666907084761

[8] Virginia Braun and Victoria Clarke 2006 Using thematic analysis in psychologyQualitative Research in Psychology 3 2 (2006) 77ndash101 httpsdoiorg1011911478088706qp063oa

[9] Jenna Burrell and Elisa Oreglia 2015 The myth of market price informationmobile phones and the application of economic knowledge in ICTD Economyand Society 44 2 (2015) 271ndash292 httpsdoiorg1010800308514720151013742

[10] Adriana Camacho and Emily Conover 2010 The Impact of Receiving Price andClimate Information in the Agricultural Sector SSRN Electronic Journal (2010)httpsdoiorg102139ssrn1755057

[11] Pierre Courtois and Julie Subervie 2014 Farmer Bargaining Power and MarketInformation Services American Journal of Agricultural Economics 97 3 (2014)953ndash977 httpsdoiorg101093ajaeaau051

[12] Nicola Dell Vidya Vaidyanathan Indrani Medhi Edward Cutrell and WilliamThies 2012 Yours is Better Participant Response Bias in HCI Proceedings ofthe 2012 ACM annual conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - CHI12 (2012) httpsdoiorg10114522076762208589

[13] Esoko 2018 Mobile and Web Apps for Data Collection and Communicationhttpswwwesokocom Accessed 2018-07-18

[14] Marcel Fafchamps and Ruth Vargas Hill 2008 Price Transmission and TraderEntry in Domestic Commodity Markets Economic Development and CulturalChange 56 4 (2008) 729ndash766 httpsdoiorg101086588155

[15] Marcel Fafchamps and Bart Minten 2012 Impact of SMS-Based AgriculturalInformation on Indian Farmers The World Bank Economic Review 26 3 (Jan 2012)383ndash414 httpsdoiorg101093wberlhr056

[16] NYU Center for Technology and Economic Development 2013 Market Informa-tion Systems for Rural Farmers Evaluation Of Esoko MIS ndash Year 1 Results (Mar2013) httpwwwnyuctedorgarchives1108

[17] Rikin Gandhi Rajesh Veeraraghavan Kentaro Toyama and Vanaja Ramprasad2007 Digital Green Participatory video for agricultural extension 2007 Interna-tional Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Develop-ment (2007) httpsdoiorg101109ictd20074937388

[18] M Sirajul Islam and Ake Groumlnlund 2010 An agricultural market informationservice (AMIS) in Bangladesh evaluating a mobile phone based e-service in arural context Information Development 26 4 (2010) 289ndash302 httpsdoiorg10

11770266666910385556[19] R Jensen 2007 The Digital Provide Information (Technology) Market Perfor-

mance and Welfare in the South Indian Fisheries Sector The Quarterly Journalof Economics 122 3 (Jan 2007) 879ndash924 httpsdoiorg101162qjec1223879

[20] Devesh Kapur andMekhala Krishnamurthy 2014 UnderstandingMandis MarketTowns and the Dynamics of Indiarsquos Rural and Urban Transformations Center forthe Advanced Study of India Working Papers Series F-35007-INC-1 (2014)

[21] Sriganesh Lokanathan Harsha De Silva and Iran Fernando 2011 2 Price trans-parency in agricultural produce markets Sri Lanka Strengthening Rural Liveli-hoods (2011) 15ndash32 httpsdoiorg1033629781780440361002

[22] Loop 2018 Loop Connecting Farmers to Markets httpsloopapporg Accessed2018-07-18

[23] M-Farm Ltd 2018 mFarm httpsmfarmcoke Accessed 2018-07-18[24] Pierre R Meacuterel Richard J Sexton and Aya Suzuki 2009 Optimal Invest-

ment in Transportation Infrastructure When Middlemen Have Market Power ADeveloping-Country Analysis American Journal of Agricultural Economics 91 2(2009) 462ndash476 httpsdoiorg101111j1467-8276200801245x

[25] Eduardo Nakasone 2013 The role of price information in agricultural marketsexperimental evidence from rural Peru In Agricultural amp Applied EconomicsAssociationrsquos 2013 AAEA amp CAES Joint Annual Meeting

[26] Ministry of Health and Government of India Family Welfare 2017 NationalFamily Health Survey 2015-2016 (NFHS-4)

[27] Census of India 2011 List of states with Population Sex Ratio and LiteracyCensus 2011 httpwwwcensus2011coinstatesphp

[28] Martin T Orne 1962 On the social psychology of the psychological experi-ment With particular reference to demand characteristics and their implicationsAmerican Psychologist 17 11 (1962) 776ndash783 httpsdoiorg101037h0043424

[29] Janaki Srinivasan and Jenna Burrell 2013 Revisiting the fishers of Kerala IndiaProceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Information and Commu-nication Technologies and Development Full Papers - ICTD 13 - volume 1 (2013)httpsdoiorg10114525166042516618

[30] George J Stigler 1976 The Economics of Information Lecture Notes in Economicsand Mathematical Systems Mathematical Models in Marketing (1976) 272ndash275httpsdoiorg101007978-3-642-51565-1_86

[31] Joseph E Stiglitz 1989 Chapter 13 Imperfect information in the product marketHandbook of Industrial Organization Handbook of Industrial Organization Volume1 (1989) 769ndash847 httpsdoiorg101016s1573-448x(89)01016-2

[32] Mark Tran 2013 Cassava on eBay M-Farm SMS helps Kenyarsquos farmersget better prices The Guardian (Jul 2013) httpswwwtheguardiancomglobal-development2013jul04m-farm-kenya-food-security

[33] USAID 2013 An Assessment of Market Information Systems in East Africa(May 2013)

[34] Aditya Vashistha Fabian Okeke Richard Anderson and Nicola Dell 2018 rsquoYouCan Always Do Betterrsquo The Impact of Social Proof on Participant Response BiasProceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems -CHI 18 (2018) httpsdoiorg10114531735743174126

[35] Madhubalan Viswanathan S Gajendiran and R Venkatesan 2008 Understandingand Enabling Marketplace Literacy in Subsistence Contexts The developmentof a consumer and entrepreneurial literacy educational program in South IndiaInternational Journal of Educational Development 28 (05 2008) 300ndash319 httpsdoiorg101016jijedudev200705004

[36] SusanWyche and Charles Steinfield 2015 Why Dont Farmers Use Cell Phones toAccess Market Prices Technology Affordances and Barriers to Market Informa-tion Services Adoption in Rural Kenya Information Technology for Development22 2 (2015) 320ndash333 httpsdoiorg1010800268110220151048184

User Research Towards a Market Information Service ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India

(a) Graph confusing (b) Dots unhelpful (c) Preferred

Figure 3 Presentations of past market prices to show mar-ket volatility All users preferred 3c (Figures are translatedfrom Hindi to English for this paper)

Graphs and visualizations are frequently used to show historicprices in many other contexts but we found them not to be useful inthis application Bar graphs (Figure 3a) confused participants othervisualizations (3b) were easier to understand but participants stillreported finding them unhelpful and unnecessarily complicated Allparticipants preferred the simplicity of seeing the prices in tabularform with no visualization (3c)

To communicate market capacity we showed screens labelingmarkets as lsquobig marketrsquo lsquomedium marketrsquo and lsquosmall marketrsquo show-ing these labels for multiple markets together so users could usefamiliar markets as references for unfamiliar ones (Figure 4a) Mostusers responded positively to this feature but we received feedbackthat some market sizes varied by season and that we should notewhich markets had outside traders who came seasonally

Transport costs During the usability tests with hypotheticalscenarios we asked users to find the market with the best payoffafter factoring in transportation costs We watched several usersstruggle to calculate payoff estimations having to keep track ofmany different numbers We considered awkward payoff-calculatorinterfaces that required significant data entry from users but wefound it more effective to simply show the cost of sending a pickuptruck to each market side-by-side with the prices (Figure 4a) Sinceonly one or two crops usually dominate a dayrsquos market trip thismock gave users the necessary information conveniently in onescreen Farmers commonly hire many different types of vehicleswith different costs but we opted to show only the cost of a pickuptruck on this screen because for distant markets it is rarely cost-effective to send any vehicle smaller than a pickup

Contacts Since many farmers cited the lack of contacts as abarrier to exploring newmarkets we showed a simple contacts pagefor commission agents at each market (see Figure 4b) We askedparticipants how they would choose which agent to contact anddiscussed options such as a rating system for agents or showingbiographical information such as vegetable specialties Several toldus that when scoping out a new market they looked for agentswith the most customers since that meant they were likely to begood agents Some participants stated that they would simply preferLoop to recommend a commission agent to them and that theywould trust the recommendation In addition to contact details ofcommission agents several participants told us that they wouldlike contacts of Loop farmers who frequented other markets sothey could learn from each other

We learned through this exercise that some factorsmdashincludingprice volatility transportation and payoff calculation and agent

(a) Mock prices screen forone crop showing marketsizes and transport costs

(b) Mock screen showingcommission agents for amarket

Figure 4 Example screen mocks shown to participants

contactsmdashare addressable through a mobile app or similar serviceHowever other important information for vegetable marketing iscomplex and difficult to capture in the structures of an MI serviceeg specific quality and processing information for each crop ateach market or the fact that one particular market shifts to nighttime for several months during the winter These factors may bebetter addressable through other media

6 DISCUSSIONWe set out to understand the potential benefits and limits of a mar-ket information service in Buxar Bihar Results from our interviewsand prototype exercises show how the arrival of mobile phoneshas brought changes to Buxarrsquos vegetable markets and examinethe many factors that influence farmersrsquo marketing behaviors Weend with a discussion of design considerations for MI services andother strategies to address market-access barriers

61 Information Asymmetry and ScarcityConsistent with the theories of information asymmetry and infor-mation scarcity we found evidence in the Buxar district showingthat conditions seemed favorable for improved market efficiencydue to better availability of price information Farmers frequentlyused their mobile phones to get price information from differentmarkets some using the prices to choose a market and negotiatewith traders After the widespread adoption of mobile phones in thearea farmers reported market changes consistent with the informa-tion scarcity theory with more traders moving vegetables betweenmarkets and fewer price crashes We also heard reports of farmersusing price information to negotiate higher prices from traders con-sistent with the information asymmetry theory Especially whencompared to other research that did not find such conditions inother locations [9 29] our work reinforces the importance of local-ization in the studies of MI services

62 Usefulness of an MI ServiceMany farmers used phone calls to access prices and other marketinformation from their social connections Would designing a dedi-cated MI service offer substantially more benefits to farmers than

ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India Ziegler Garg Tiwary Vashistha Heimerl

simply having mobile phones alone Our findings indicate severalpotential benefits in favor of the former Marketing is hugely time-consuming for farmers and an MI service could eliminate the needto make calls to multiple markets Not every farmer has marketconnections for checking prices over the phone and an MI servicecould reduce this barrier An MI service could also help to providediscretion and avoid social obligations for farmers such as F1 whoreported feeling obligated to sell to a certain commission agent if hecalled that agent to check the prices Commission agents sometimesquote misleading rates to farmers but an MI service could providemore reliable information

However many barriers to market access are simply not address-able by an information system like as danger time and credit Forsome other factorsmdashlike price volatility and unfamiliaritymdashan infor-mation system could provide some assistance but the complexityof vegetable marketing presents challenges

63 Future Work and Design ConsiderationsApart from the information scarcity of prices we demonstratedthrough our interviews the many other barriers that keep farm-ers from accessing other markets such as personal relationshipsprice volatility physical danger credit time unfamiliarity and lackof marketing skills Although we probed some of these barrierswith early-stage prototypes much more work is needed to evalu-ate which barriers are actually addressable using information andcommunication technologies

From our interview and prototyping work we are optimistic thatincluding some non-price information into an MI service could behelpful in this region We found positive reception for indicationsof market capacity price variability and contacts of commissionagents and traders at unfamiliar markets Although the prototypingexercises were rewarding to examine factors and their presenta-tions we will be able to answer many questions only by testingwith full implementations For example although many farmersindicated they would be comfortable calling unfamiliar traders andcommission agents in new markets only a deployment could revealwhether farmers and aggregators would indeed use this feature

We found that farmers often share prices around their villagesand make joint marketing decisions However most existing MI ser-vices target individuals There is an opportunity for more researchabout collaborative uses of market information

Especially because fewwomen can be found in Buxarrsquos wholesalevegetable markets additional work is needed to better understandthe roles and needs of women engaged in vegetable marketing

Our participants showed striking discrepancies in marketingskills some were incredibly savvy experienced marketers whogave us many tips and leveraged connections at dozens of differentmarkets many other farmers were inexperienced constrained andrisk-averse Because of the richness and complexity of vegetablemarketing strategies gaps in these skills are probably not well ad-dressable by a market information service and better suited to othermedia For example it may be fruitful to draw upon Vishwanathanet alrsquos work on consumer marketplace skills [35] They developeda participatory in-person market literacy course in south Indiathat covers topics like checking weights understanding price no-tations developing relationships with merchants and customers

basic accounting and avoiding credit and associated costs Alongthis vein some Loop farmers have suggested organizing lsquofield tripsrsquoto different markets to learn how they work Similarly multimediaapproachesmdashsuch as mFarmrsquos experiments in using community-ledvideo education to help users learn to use their MI service [36]mdashcould be expanded to cover more marketing skills

64 Study BiasesOur sample was not random and not fully representative of thearea All farmers we interviewed used the Loop service and likelyhad some different characteristics relative to non-users Notablyour sample included no women All participating farmers also usedLoop as a source of income and they likely did not want to sayanything that could damage that relationship

65 Ongoing Work by LoopAt the time of writing Loop has started early-stage pilots of anSMS- and IVR-based market price service and trials of a smartphoneapplication built from our prototypes (Section 5) Through theseprototypes we hope to build an MI service that can change themarketing behaviors of Loop farmers solicit farmer feedback aboutfeatures and further develop our user interfaces

Loop has other ongoing projects to address market-access barri-ers outside the reach of an information system One project coordi-nates multiple villages for more cost-effective transportation Toaddress market unfamiliarity Loop has a pilot to explore how partic-ipatory user-generated videos [17] could be leveraged to familiarizeusers with aspects of different markets for example demonstratingthe best way to cut cauliflower for a particular destination Ongo-ing pilots with digital payments allow farmers to send produce todistant markets without the risk and delay of sending cash back

7 CONCLUSIONWe have shown that farmers in Buxar commonly use mobile phonesto acquire price information for bargaining and market choice sug-gesting the usefulness of a market information service to reduceinformation scarcity and information asymmetry We have reportedfactors that limit the usefulness of market price information includ-ing time and convenience unfamiliarity with new markets lackof connections personal relationships price crashes productionvolume attitudes towards risk credit relationships and physicaldanger and we have presented further results from exploratoryuser studies for addressing specific barriers to market access

8 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSThe authors gratefully acknowledge the entire Loop team especiallythose members who contributed to this project Aditya Sethi EricaArya Ashok Kumar Bipin Raj Divish Gupta Abhishek Lodha andS Kaushik We are thankful to our anonymous reviewers who pro-vided important feedback and to Ishan Sapru Chrungoo KonarakRatnakar and Bharat Agarwal who transcribed and translated in-terviews We are especially grateful to the farmers who generouslycontributed their time effort and hospitality

User Research Towards a Market Information Service ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India

REFERENCES[1] RML Agtech 2018 FarmBee httpsfarmbeein Accessed 2018-07-18[2] Yaw Anokwa Thomas N Smyth Divya Ramachandran Jahanzeb Sherwani Yael

Schwartzman Rowena Luk Melissa Ho Neema Moraveji and Brian DeRenzi2009 Stories from the field Reflections on HCI4D experiences InformationTechnologies amp International Development 5 4 (2009)

[3] GSM Association 2013 Mobile Market Information for Agri VAS Operators AQuick Start Guide

[4] World Bank 2012 Information and communications for development 2012Maximizing mobile httpgoworldbankorg0J2CTQTYP0 Accessed 2018-07-18

[5] Heike Baumuumlller 2015 Enhancing smallholder market participation throughmobile phone-enabled services The case of M-Farm in Kenya The ElectronicJournal of Information Systems in Developing Countries 68 (2015) 1ndash16 Issue 6

[6] Heike Baumuumlller 2017 The LittleWe Know An Exploratory Literature Review onthe Utility of Mobile Phone-Enabled Services for Smallholder Farmers Journal ofInternational Development 30 1 (2017) 134ndash154 httpsdoiorg101002jid3314

[7] Raymond A Boadi Richard Boateng Robert Hinson and Robert A Opoku2007 Preliminary Insights into M-commerce Adoption in Ghana InformationDevelopment 23 4 (2007) 253ndash265 httpsdoiorg1011770266666907084761

[8] Virginia Braun and Victoria Clarke 2006 Using thematic analysis in psychologyQualitative Research in Psychology 3 2 (2006) 77ndash101 httpsdoiorg1011911478088706qp063oa

[9] Jenna Burrell and Elisa Oreglia 2015 The myth of market price informationmobile phones and the application of economic knowledge in ICTD Economyand Society 44 2 (2015) 271ndash292 httpsdoiorg1010800308514720151013742

[10] Adriana Camacho and Emily Conover 2010 The Impact of Receiving Price andClimate Information in the Agricultural Sector SSRN Electronic Journal (2010)httpsdoiorg102139ssrn1755057

[11] Pierre Courtois and Julie Subervie 2014 Farmer Bargaining Power and MarketInformation Services American Journal of Agricultural Economics 97 3 (2014)953ndash977 httpsdoiorg101093ajaeaau051

[12] Nicola Dell Vidya Vaidyanathan Indrani Medhi Edward Cutrell and WilliamThies 2012 Yours is Better Participant Response Bias in HCI Proceedings ofthe 2012 ACM annual conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - CHI12 (2012) httpsdoiorg10114522076762208589

[13] Esoko 2018 Mobile and Web Apps for Data Collection and Communicationhttpswwwesokocom Accessed 2018-07-18

[14] Marcel Fafchamps and Ruth Vargas Hill 2008 Price Transmission and TraderEntry in Domestic Commodity Markets Economic Development and CulturalChange 56 4 (2008) 729ndash766 httpsdoiorg101086588155

[15] Marcel Fafchamps and Bart Minten 2012 Impact of SMS-Based AgriculturalInformation on Indian Farmers The World Bank Economic Review 26 3 (Jan 2012)383ndash414 httpsdoiorg101093wberlhr056

[16] NYU Center for Technology and Economic Development 2013 Market Informa-tion Systems for Rural Farmers Evaluation Of Esoko MIS ndash Year 1 Results (Mar2013) httpwwwnyuctedorgarchives1108

[17] Rikin Gandhi Rajesh Veeraraghavan Kentaro Toyama and Vanaja Ramprasad2007 Digital Green Participatory video for agricultural extension 2007 Interna-tional Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Develop-ment (2007) httpsdoiorg101109ictd20074937388

[18] M Sirajul Islam and Ake Groumlnlund 2010 An agricultural market informationservice (AMIS) in Bangladesh evaluating a mobile phone based e-service in arural context Information Development 26 4 (2010) 289ndash302 httpsdoiorg10

11770266666910385556[19] R Jensen 2007 The Digital Provide Information (Technology) Market Perfor-

mance and Welfare in the South Indian Fisheries Sector The Quarterly Journalof Economics 122 3 (Jan 2007) 879ndash924 httpsdoiorg101162qjec1223879

[20] Devesh Kapur andMekhala Krishnamurthy 2014 UnderstandingMandis MarketTowns and the Dynamics of Indiarsquos Rural and Urban Transformations Center forthe Advanced Study of India Working Papers Series F-35007-INC-1 (2014)

[21] Sriganesh Lokanathan Harsha De Silva and Iran Fernando 2011 2 Price trans-parency in agricultural produce markets Sri Lanka Strengthening Rural Liveli-hoods (2011) 15ndash32 httpsdoiorg1033629781780440361002

[22] Loop 2018 Loop Connecting Farmers to Markets httpsloopapporg Accessed2018-07-18

[23] M-Farm Ltd 2018 mFarm httpsmfarmcoke Accessed 2018-07-18[24] Pierre R Meacuterel Richard J Sexton and Aya Suzuki 2009 Optimal Invest-

ment in Transportation Infrastructure When Middlemen Have Market Power ADeveloping-Country Analysis American Journal of Agricultural Economics 91 2(2009) 462ndash476 httpsdoiorg101111j1467-8276200801245x

[25] Eduardo Nakasone 2013 The role of price information in agricultural marketsexperimental evidence from rural Peru In Agricultural amp Applied EconomicsAssociationrsquos 2013 AAEA amp CAES Joint Annual Meeting

[26] Ministry of Health and Government of India Family Welfare 2017 NationalFamily Health Survey 2015-2016 (NFHS-4)

[27] Census of India 2011 List of states with Population Sex Ratio and LiteracyCensus 2011 httpwwwcensus2011coinstatesphp

[28] Martin T Orne 1962 On the social psychology of the psychological experi-ment With particular reference to demand characteristics and their implicationsAmerican Psychologist 17 11 (1962) 776ndash783 httpsdoiorg101037h0043424

[29] Janaki Srinivasan and Jenna Burrell 2013 Revisiting the fishers of Kerala IndiaProceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Information and Commu-nication Technologies and Development Full Papers - ICTD 13 - volume 1 (2013)httpsdoiorg10114525166042516618

[30] George J Stigler 1976 The Economics of Information Lecture Notes in Economicsand Mathematical Systems Mathematical Models in Marketing (1976) 272ndash275httpsdoiorg101007978-3-642-51565-1_86

[31] Joseph E Stiglitz 1989 Chapter 13 Imperfect information in the product marketHandbook of Industrial Organization Handbook of Industrial Organization Volume1 (1989) 769ndash847 httpsdoiorg101016s1573-448x(89)01016-2

[32] Mark Tran 2013 Cassava on eBay M-Farm SMS helps Kenyarsquos farmersget better prices The Guardian (Jul 2013) httpswwwtheguardiancomglobal-development2013jul04m-farm-kenya-food-security

[33] USAID 2013 An Assessment of Market Information Systems in East Africa(May 2013)

[34] Aditya Vashistha Fabian Okeke Richard Anderson and Nicola Dell 2018 rsquoYouCan Always Do Betterrsquo The Impact of Social Proof on Participant Response BiasProceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems -CHI 18 (2018) httpsdoiorg10114531735743174126

[35] Madhubalan Viswanathan S Gajendiran and R Venkatesan 2008 Understandingand Enabling Marketplace Literacy in Subsistence Contexts The developmentof a consumer and entrepreneurial literacy educational program in South IndiaInternational Journal of Educational Development 28 (05 2008) 300ndash319 httpsdoiorg101016jijedudev200705004

[36] SusanWyche and Charles Steinfield 2015 Why Dont Farmers Use Cell Phones toAccess Market Prices Technology Affordances and Barriers to Market Informa-tion Services Adoption in Rural Kenya Information Technology for Development22 2 (2015) 320ndash333 httpsdoiorg1010800268110220151048184

ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India Ziegler Garg Tiwary Vashistha Heimerl

simply having mobile phones alone Our findings indicate severalpotential benefits in favor of the former Marketing is hugely time-consuming for farmers and an MI service could eliminate the needto make calls to multiple markets Not every farmer has marketconnections for checking prices over the phone and an MI servicecould reduce this barrier An MI service could also help to providediscretion and avoid social obligations for farmers such as F1 whoreported feeling obligated to sell to a certain commission agent if hecalled that agent to check the prices Commission agents sometimesquote misleading rates to farmers but an MI service could providemore reliable information

However many barriers to market access are simply not address-able by an information system like as danger time and credit Forsome other factorsmdashlike price volatility and unfamiliaritymdashan infor-mation system could provide some assistance but the complexityof vegetable marketing presents challenges

63 Future Work and Design ConsiderationsApart from the information scarcity of prices we demonstratedthrough our interviews the many other barriers that keep farm-ers from accessing other markets such as personal relationshipsprice volatility physical danger credit time unfamiliarity and lackof marketing skills Although we probed some of these barrierswith early-stage prototypes much more work is needed to evalu-ate which barriers are actually addressable using information andcommunication technologies

From our interview and prototyping work we are optimistic thatincluding some non-price information into an MI service could behelpful in this region We found positive reception for indicationsof market capacity price variability and contacts of commissionagents and traders at unfamiliar markets Although the prototypingexercises were rewarding to examine factors and their presenta-tions we will be able to answer many questions only by testingwith full implementations For example although many farmersindicated they would be comfortable calling unfamiliar traders andcommission agents in new markets only a deployment could revealwhether farmers and aggregators would indeed use this feature

We found that farmers often share prices around their villagesand make joint marketing decisions However most existing MI ser-vices target individuals There is an opportunity for more researchabout collaborative uses of market information

Especially because fewwomen can be found in Buxarrsquos wholesalevegetable markets additional work is needed to better understandthe roles and needs of women engaged in vegetable marketing

Our participants showed striking discrepancies in marketingskills some were incredibly savvy experienced marketers whogave us many tips and leveraged connections at dozens of differentmarkets many other farmers were inexperienced constrained andrisk-averse Because of the richness and complexity of vegetablemarketing strategies gaps in these skills are probably not well ad-dressable by a market information service and better suited to othermedia For example it may be fruitful to draw upon Vishwanathanet alrsquos work on consumer marketplace skills [35] They developeda participatory in-person market literacy course in south Indiathat covers topics like checking weights understanding price no-tations developing relationships with merchants and customers

basic accounting and avoiding credit and associated costs Alongthis vein some Loop farmers have suggested organizing lsquofield tripsrsquoto different markets to learn how they work Similarly multimediaapproachesmdashsuch as mFarmrsquos experiments in using community-ledvideo education to help users learn to use their MI service [36]mdashcould be expanded to cover more marketing skills

64 Study BiasesOur sample was not random and not fully representative of thearea All farmers we interviewed used the Loop service and likelyhad some different characteristics relative to non-users Notablyour sample included no women All participating farmers also usedLoop as a source of income and they likely did not want to sayanything that could damage that relationship

65 Ongoing Work by LoopAt the time of writing Loop has started early-stage pilots of anSMS- and IVR-based market price service and trials of a smartphoneapplication built from our prototypes (Section 5) Through theseprototypes we hope to build an MI service that can change themarketing behaviors of Loop farmers solicit farmer feedback aboutfeatures and further develop our user interfaces

Loop has other ongoing projects to address market-access barri-ers outside the reach of an information system One project coordi-nates multiple villages for more cost-effective transportation Toaddress market unfamiliarity Loop has a pilot to explore how partic-ipatory user-generated videos [17] could be leveraged to familiarizeusers with aspects of different markets for example demonstratingthe best way to cut cauliflower for a particular destination Ongo-ing pilots with digital payments allow farmers to send produce todistant markets without the risk and delay of sending cash back

7 CONCLUSIONWe have shown that farmers in Buxar commonly use mobile phonesto acquire price information for bargaining and market choice sug-gesting the usefulness of a market information service to reduceinformation scarcity and information asymmetry We have reportedfactors that limit the usefulness of market price information includ-ing time and convenience unfamiliarity with new markets lackof connections personal relationships price crashes productionvolume attitudes towards risk credit relationships and physicaldanger and we have presented further results from exploratoryuser studies for addressing specific barriers to market access

8 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSThe authors gratefully acknowledge the entire Loop team especiallythose members who contributed to this project Aditya Sethi EricaArya Ashok Kumar Bipin Raj Divish Gupta Abhishek Lodha andS Kaushik We are thankful to our anonymous reviewers who pro-vided important feedback and to Ishan Sapru Chrungoo KonarakRatnakar and Bharat Agarwal who transcribed and translated in-terviews We are especially grateful to the farmers who generouslycontributed their time effort and hospitality

User Research Towards a Market Information Service ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India

REFERENCES[1] RML Agtech 2018 FarmBee httpsfarmbeein Accessed 2018-07-18[2] Yaw Anokwa Thomas N Smyth Divya Ramachandran Jahanzeb Sherwani Yael

Schwartzman Rowena Luk Melissa Ho Neema Moraveji and Brian DeRenzi2009 Stories from the field Reflections on HCI4D experiences InformationTechnologies amp International Development 5 4 (2009)

[3] GSM Association 2013 Mobile Market Information for Agri VAS Operators AQuick Start Guide

[4] World Bank 2012 Information and communications for development 2012Maximizing mobile httpgoworldbankorg0J2CTQTYP0 Accessed 2018-07-18

[5] Heike Baumuumlller 2015 Enhancing smallholder market participation throughmobile phone-enabled services The case of M-Farm in Kenya The ElectronicJournal of Information Systems in Developing Countries 68 (2015) 1ndash16 Issue 6

[6] Heike Baumuumlller 2017 The LittleWe Know An Exploratory Literature Review onthe Utility of Mobile Phone-Enabled Services for Smallholder Farmers Journal ofInternational Development 30 1 (2017) 134ndash154 httpsdoiorg101002jid3314

[7] Raymond A Boadi Richard Boateng Robert Hinson and Robert A Opoku2007 Preliminary Insights into M-commerce Adoption in Ghana InformationDevelopment 23 4 (2007) 253ndash265 httpsdoiorg1011770266666907084761

[8] Virginia Braun and Victoria Clarke 2006 Using thematic analysis in psychologyQualitative Research in Psychology 3 2 (2006) 77ndash101 httpsdoiorg1011911478088706qp063oa

[9] Jenna Burrell and Elisa Oreglia 2015 The myth of market price informationmobile phones and the application of economic knowledge in ICTD Economyand Society 44 2 (2015) 271ndash292 httpsdoiorg1010800308514720151013742

[10] Adriana Camacho and Emily Conover 2010 The Impact of Receiving Price andClimate Information in the Agricultural Sector SSRN Electronic Journal (2010)httpsdoiorg102139ssrn1755057

[11] Pierre Courtois and Julie Subervie 2014 Farmer Bargaining Power and MarketInformation Services American Journal of Agricultural Economics 97 3 (2014)953ndash977 httpsdoiorg101093ajaeaau051

[12] Nicola Dell Vidya Vaidyanathan Indrani Medhi Edward Cutrell and WilliamThies 2012 Yours is Better Participant Response Bias in HCI Proceedings ofthe 2012 ACM annual conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - CHI12 (2012) httpsdoiorg10114522076762208589

[13] Esoko 2018 Mobile and Web Apps for Data Collection and Communicationhttpswwwesokocom Accessed 2018-07-18

[14] Marcel Fafchamps and Ruth Vargas Hill 2008 Price Transmission and TraderEntry in Domestic Commodity Markets Economic Development and CulturalChange 56 4 (2008) 729ndash766 httpsdoiorg101086588155

[15] Marcel Fafchamps and Bart Minten 2012 Impact of SMS-Based AgriculturalInformation on Indian Farmers The World Bank Economic Review 26 3 (Jan 2012)383ndash414 httpsdoiorg101093wberlhr056

[16] NYU Center for Technology and Economic Development 2013 Market Informa-tion Systems for Rural Farmers Evaluation Of Esoko MIS ndash Year 1 Results (Mar2013) httpwwwnyuctedorgarchives1108

[17] Rikin Gandhi Rajesh Veeraraghavan Kentaro Toyama and Vanaja Ramprasad2007 Digital Green Participatory video for agricultural extension 2007 Interna-tional Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Develop-ment (2007) httpsdoiorg101109ictd20074937388

[18] M Sirajul Islam and Ake Groumlnlund 2010 An agricultural market informationservice (AMIS) in Bangladesh evaluating a mobile phone based e-service in arural context Information Development 26 4 (2010) 289ndash302 httpsdoiorg10

11770266666910385556[19] R Jensen 2007 The Digital Provide Information (Technology) Market Perfor-

mance and Welfare in the South Indian Fisheries Sector The Quarterly Journalof Economics 122 3 (Jan 2007) 879ndash924 httpsdoiorg101162qjec1223879

[20] Devesh Kapur andMekhala Krishnamurthy 2014 UnderstandingMandis MarketTowns and the Dynamics of Indiarsquos Rural and Urban Transformations Center forthe Advanced Study of India Working Papers Series F-35007-INC-1 (2014)

[21] Sriganesh Lokanathan Harsha De Silva and Iran Fernando 2011 2 Price trans-parency in agricultural produce markets Sri Lanka Strengthening Rural Liveli-hoods (2011) 15ndash32 httpsdoiorg1033629781780440361002

[22] Loop 2018 Loop Connecting Farmers to Markets httpsloopapporg Accessed2018-07-18

[23] M-Farm Ltd 2018 mFarm httpsmfarmcoke Accessed 2018-07-18[24] Pierre R Meacuterel Richard J Sexton and Aya Suzuki 2009 Optimal Invest-

ment in Transportation Infrastructure When Middlemen Have Market Power ADeveloping-Country Analysis American Journal of Agricultural Economics 91 2(2009) 462ndash476 httpsdoiorg101111j1467-8276200801245x

[25] Eduardo Nakasone 2013 The role of price information in agricultural marketsexperimental evidence from rural Peru In Agricultural amp Applied EconomicsAssociationrsquos 2013 AAEA amp CAES Joint Annual Meeting

[26] Ministry of Health and Government of India Family Welfare 2017 NationalFamily Health Survey 2015-2016 (NFHS-4)

[27] Census of India 2011 List of states with Population Sex Ratio and LiteracyCensus 2011 httpwwwcensus2011coinstatesphp

[28] Martin T Orne 1962 On the social psychology of the psychological experi-ment With particular reference to demand characteristics and their implicationsAmerican Psychologist 17 11 (1962) 776ndash783 httpsdoiorg101037h0043424

[29] Janaki Srinivasan and Jenna Burrell 2013 Revisiting the fishers of Kerala IndiaProceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Information and Commu-nication Technologies and Development Full Papers - ICTD 13 - volume 1 (2013)httpsdoiorg10114525166042516618

[30] George J Stigler 1976 The Economics of Information Lecture Notes in Economicsand Mathematical Systems Mathematical Models in Marketing (1976) 272ndash275httpsdoiorg101007978-3-642-51565-1_86

[31] Joseph E Stiglitz 1989 Chapter 13 Imperfect information in the product marketHandbook of Industrial Organization Handbook of Industrial Organization Volume1 (1989) 769ndash847 httpsdoiorg101016s1573-448x(89)01016-2

[32] Mark Tran 2013 Cassava on eBay M-Farm SMS helps Kenyarsquos farmersget better prices The Guardian (Jul 2013) httpswwwtheguardiancomglobal-development2013jul04m-farm-kenya-food-security

[33] USAID 2013 An Assessment of Market Information Systems in East Africa(May 2013)

[34] Aditya Vashistha Fabian Okeke Richard Anderson and Nicola Dell 2018 rsquoYouCan Always Do Betterrsquo The Impact of Social Proof on Participant Response BiasProceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems -CHI 18 (2018) httpsdoiorg10114531735743174126

[35] Madhubalan Viswanathan S Gajendiran and R Venkatesan 2008 Understandingand Enabling Marketplace Literacy in Subsistence Contexts The developmentof a consumer and entrepreneurial literacy educational program in South IndiaInternational Journal of Educational Development 28 (05 2008) 300ndash319 httpsdoiorg101016jijedudev200705004

[36] SusanWyche and Charles Steinfield 2015 Why Dont Farmers Use Cell Phones toAccess Market Prices Technology Affordances and Barriers to Market Informa-tion Services Adoption in Rural Kenya Information Technology for Development22 2 (2015) 320ndash333 httpsdoiorg1010800268110220151048184

User Research Towards a Market Information Service ICTD rsquo19 January 4ndash7 2019 Ahmedabad India

REFERENCES[1] RML Agtech 2018 FarmBee httpsfarmbeein Accessed 2018-07-18[2] Yaw Anokwa Thomas N Smyth Divya Ramachandran Jahanzeb Sherwani Yael

Schwartzman Rowena Luk Melissa Ho Neema Moraveji and Brian DeRenzi2009 Stories from the field Reflections on HCI4D experiences InformationTechnologies amp International Development 5 4 (2009)

[3] GSM Association 2013 Mobile Market Information for Agri VAS Operators AQuick Start Guide

[4] World Bank 2012 Information and communications for development 2012Maximizing mobile httpgoworldbankorg0J2CTQTYP0 Accessed 2018-07-18

[5] Heike Baumuumlller 2015 Enhancing smallholder market participation throughmobile phone-enabled services The case of M-Farm in Kenya The ElectronicJournal of Information Systems in Developing Countries 68 (2015) 1ndash16 Issue 6

[6] Heike Baumuumlller 2017 The LittleWe Know An Exploratory Literature Review onthe Utility of Mobile Phone-Enabled Services for Smallholder Farmers Journal ofInternational Development 30 1 (2017) 134ndash154 httpsdoiorg101002jid3314

[7] Raymond A Boadi Richard Boateng Robert Hinson and Robert A Opoku2007 Preliminary Insights into M-commerce Adoption in Ghana InformationDevelopment 23 4 (2007) 253ndash265 httpsdoiorg1011770266666907084761

[8] Virginia Braun and Victoria Clarke 2006 Using thematic analysis in psychologyQualitative Research in Psychology 3 2 (2006) 77ndash101 httpsdoiorg1011911478088706qp063oa

[9] Jenna Burrell and Elisa Oreglia 2015 The myth of market price informationmobile phones and the application of economic knowledge in ICTD Economyand Society 44 2 (2015) 271ndash292 httpsdoiorg1010800308514720151013742

[10] Adriana Camacho and Emily Conover 2010 The Impact of Receiving Price andClimate Information in the Agricultural Sector SSRN Electronic Journal (2010)httpsdoiorg102139ssrn1755057

[11] Pierre Courtois and Julie Subervie 2014 Farmer Bargaining Power and MarketInformation Services American Journal of Agricultural Economics 97 3 (2014)953ndash977 httpsdoiorg101093ajaeaau051

[12] Nicola Dell Vidya Vaidyanathan Indrani Medhi Edward Cutrell and WilliamThies 2012 Yours is Better Participant Response Bias in HCI Proceedings ofthe 2012 ACM annual conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - CHI12 (2012) httpsdoiorg10114522076762208589

[13] Esoko 2018 Mobile and Web Apps for Data Collection and Communicationhttpswwwesokocom Accessed 2018-07-18

[14] Marcel Fafchamps and Ruth Vargas Hill 2008 Price Transmission and TraderEntry in Domestic Commodity Markets Economic Development and CulturalChange 56 4 (2008) 729ndash766 httpsdoiorg101086588155

[15] Marcel Fafchamps and Bart Minten 2012 Impact of SMS-Based AgriculturalInformation on Indian Farmers The World Bank Economic Review 26 3 (Jan 2012)383ndash414 httpsdoiorg101093wberlhr056

[16] NYU Center for Technology and Economic Development 2013 Market Informa-tion Systems for Rural Farmers Evaluation Of Esoko MIS ndash Year 1 Results (Mar2013) httpwwwnyuctedorgarchives1108

[17] Rikin Gandhi Rajesh Veeraraghavan Kentaro Toyama and Vanaja Ramprasad2007 Digital Green Participatory video for agricultural extension 2007 Interna-tional Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Develop-ment (2007) httpsdoiorg101109ictd20074937388

[18] M Sirajul Islam and Ake Groumlnlund 2010 An agricultural market informationservice (AMIS) in Bangladesh evaluating a mobile phone based e-service in arural context Information Development 26 4 (2010) 289ndash302 httpsdoiorg10

11770266666910385556[19] R Jensen 2007 The Digital Provide Information (Technology) Market Perfor-

mance and Welfare in the South Indian Fisheries Sector The Quarterly Journalof Economics 122 3 (Jan 2007) 879ndash924 httpsdoiorg101162qjec1223879

[20] Devesh Kapur andMekhala Krishnamurthy 2014 UnderstandingMandis MarketTowns and the Dynamics of Indiarsquos Rural and Urban Transformations Center forthe Advanced Study of India Working Papers Series F-35007-INC-1 (2014)

[21] Sriganesh Lokanathan Harsha De Silva and Iran Fernando 2011 2 Price trans-parency in agricultural produce markets Sri Lanka Strengthening Rural Liveli-hoods (2011) 15ndash32 httpsdoiorg1033629781780440361002

[22] Loop 2018 Loop Connecting Farmers to Markets httpsloopapporg Accessed2018-07-18

[23] M-Farm Ltd 2018 mFarm httpsmfarmcoke Accessed 2018-07-18[24] Pierre R Meacuterel Richard J Sexton and Aya Suzuki 2009 Optimal Invest-

ment in Transportation Infrastructure When Middlemen Have Market Power ADeveloping-Country Analysis American Journal of Agricultural Economics 91 2(2009) 462ndash476 httpsdoiorg101111j1467-8276200801245x

[25] Eduardo Nakasone 2013 The role of price information in agricultural marketsexperimental evidence from rural Peru In Agricultural amp Applied EconomicsAssociationrsquos 2013 AAEA amp CAES Joint Annual Meeting

[26] Ministry of Health and Government of India Family Welfare 2017 NationalFamily Health Survey 2015-2016 (NFHS-4)

[27] Census of India 2011 List of states with Population Sex Ratio and LiteracyCensus 2011 httpwwwcensus2011coinstatesphp

[28] Martin T Orne 1962 On the social psychology of the psychological experi-ment With particular reference to demand characteristics and their implicationsAmerican Psychologist 17 11 (1962) 776ndash783 httpsdoiorg101037h0043424

[29] Janaki Srinivasan and Jenna Burrell 2013 Revisiting the fishers of Kerala IndiaProceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Information and Commu-nication Technologies and Development Full Papers - ICTD 13 - volume 1 (2013)httpsdoiorg10114525166042516618

[30] George J Stigler 1976 The Economics of Information Lecture Notes in Economicsand Mathematical Systems Mathematical Models in Marketing (1976) 272ndash275httpsdoiorg101007978-3-642-51565-1_86

[31] Joseph E Stiglitz 1989 Chapter 13 Imperfect information in the product marketHandbook of Industrial Organization Handbook of Industrial Organization Volume1 (1989) 769ndash847 httpsdoiorg101016s1573-448x(89)01016-2

[32] Mark Tran 2013 Cassava on eBay M-Farm SMS helps Kenyarsquos farmersget better prices The Guardian (Jul 2013) httpswwwtheguardiancomglobal-development2013jul04m-farm-kenya-food-security

[33] USAID 2013 An Assessment of Market Information Systems in East Africa(May 2013)

[34] Aditya Vashistha Fabian Okeke Richard Anderson and Nicola Dell 2018 rsquoYouCan Always Do Betterrsquo The Impact of Social Proof on Participant Response BiasProceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems -CHI 18 (2018) httpsdoiorg10114531735743174126

[35] Madhubalan Viswanathan S Gajendiran and R Venkatesan 2008 Understandingand Enabling Marketplace Literacy in Subsistence Contexts The developmentof a consumer and entrepreneurial literacy educational program in South IndiaInternational Journal of Educational Development 28 (05 2008) 300ndash319 httpsdoiorg101016jijedudev200705004

[36] SusanWyche and Charles Steinfield 2015 Why Dont Farmers Use Cell Phones toAccess Market Prices Technology Affordances and Barriers to Market Informa-tion Services Adoption in Rural Kenya Information Technology for Development22 2 (2015) 320ndash333 httpsdoiorg1010800268110220151048184