Local Market location

[Akira EllisParticipant]

In the brief, it’s mentioned that farmers are sometimes unable to sell product at the local market. Do farmers sell their produce in the local villages? or do they tend to travel to one of the larger towns like Liquica to sell their goods.

[Anthony BradyKeymaster]

Hi Akira,

There are some opportunities to sell produce in the villages but these are limited. Larger towns like Liquiçá provide more opportunity but come with their own set of challenges. From our scoping trip, when speaking to a local farmer, he identified a range of challenges he faces including:

• working on the mountainous terrain
• finding people to purchase his produce / not knowing where to sell his produce
• return on investment i.e. farming is currently very labour intensive and the market price of produce isn’t reflective of that
• transportation of produce to market is also difficult especially when there is more produce than what one person can carry

If you haven’t already, have a look through the 360 Interactives which has some more content relating to agriculture including the interview I mentioned above.

Hope that helps.

Cheers,
Anthony

[Maya FotiParticipant]

Hello there,
Our group is working on the agriculture and livelihood, and we had some questions about how the food is transported to the markets. We were wondering if it is transported by foot or through some kind of transportation such as cars to move it around and how long on average this usual takes.

We also wanted to ask if it is moved on foot, what carrying devices are currently being used (such as the types of bags or baskets), and how they are being carried (i.e. shoulders, arms, hands etc.)?

Along with this we wanted to know how many people go on these trips and how often?
Thank you

[Evelyn TodioKeymaster]

Hi Maya,

The socio-economic status of an individual or family may determine what method of transport is available to get food to the markets. Transport methods include:
– Travelling by foot. It is very common for distances ranging from a couple of kilometers to up to 10km. This may take up to a few hours depending on the distance of the house to the market. This might be a more viable option for where there is not a paved road suitable for vehicles.
– Motorbikes.
– Vehicles such as cars or utes (pickup trucks)
– Shared transport. A truck travelling through the village may be able to get people to a closer destination.
These last three points will take less time than walking (30min – 1hr). But this also depends on the accessibility of the road.

Carrying devices include rice sacks, crates, buckets, woven baskets etc. Shoulders, arms, hands, head are all used to carry products/goods.

1-2 people may go to the market at time from the same family or neighboring households. Number of trips also varies but a few times a week is common.

I hope this helps.

Kind regards,
Evelyn

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