Development of e-market model for Ethiopian Agro product marketing, pp.28-42

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) developments can provide opportunities for agricultural products market. ICT could facilitate the transformation of Ethiopia's predominantly subsistence-agricultural economy into a modern large-scale farming. This thesis comes up with a model that enables agricultural businesses to expand and implement electronic markets and supports commercial activities. The advancement information and communication technology brings challenges and opportunities for agricultural market. Developing countries need to implement proper e-market model to become competent in the global agricultural market. Internet businesses are requiring properly designed and developed e-market model. For this research the technique of Empirical survey was selected, within which the structured interview with farmers was the data collection strategy. 40 farmers from Miesso, and Fogera district were selected randomly. The research revealed different problems of the agricultural market in Ethiopia, including: lack of appropriate storage facilities and technologies, farmers exploited by brokers during negotiation, farmers lack skill of information and communication technologies, farmers incur high transportation cost and are exploited by retailers or wholesalers, farmers lack of entrepreneurial and technical skills. The intention of this thesis is then to contribute to the effort of alleviating the problem that can ben seen in the analysis of the traditional agricultural market. From the analysis given and the identified requirements appropriate e-market mode is designed.