The government of Malawi in 2004 initiated an ICT-based Malawi Agricultural Commodity Exchange (MACE), a market information service project, to improve access by farmers to market information. MACE was intended to improve the efficiency of agricultural markets as part of the strategy to improve food security. This study uses quantitative methods to examine whether MACE has contributed to effici...

Annually between 1994 and 1998 over 400,000 acres of grain sorghum have been harvested in Missouri with an average yield of 86/bushels/acre. The average value of production during this period was over $90 million. Grain sorghum (milo) is an important crop for some Missouri producers. Many sorghum producers also produce corn, soybean, or wheat. Each of these commodities has an actively traded fu...

In an economy with commodity-pairwise trading posts and transaction costs, commodity money is endogenously determined in general equilibrium. Absent double coincidence of wants, the lowtransaction cost commodity (with the narrowest proportional bid/ask price spread) becomes the common medium of exchange. JEL Classification: C62, E40

Executive Summary The lack of market information represents a significant impediment to market access especially for smallholder poor farmers: it substantially increases transaction costs and reduces market efficiency. For any one crop, the marketing chain consists of multiple middlemen, each taking a margin at every stage of the chain, and price variations in space and time are often large and...

Renewable resources from agriculture have the potential to be an attractive alternative source of raw materials for industry. Their efficient use is important, since acreage for cultivation is limited. For such applications, supply planning can pose specific problems for processors of raw materials, because many crops are only seasonally available. Harvest quality and quantity as well as sales ...